Early in the summer of 2003, the Implementation Team recommended to the Executive Council that the NSSC be located on a single site and that an Executive Director be hired; the Executive Council agreed. The team also endorsed the functional activities that had been studied and reported on in the CBSO study.

Before 2003 closed its doors on December, the site nomination guidelines and criteria were released and the public announcement was made that NASA would be holding an A-76 Public-Private competition: those 2 ½ years had been a flurry of activity, but nobody could predict the challenges and adventures to come.

In January 2004, NASA made a significant step forward in establishing the NSSC: Rick Arbuthnot was named the Executive Director of the soon-to-come NASA Shared Services Center and site proposals were received from 6 of the 9 NASA centers, including: Glenn Research Center, Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, Langley Research Center, Marshall Spaceflight Center, and the Stennis Space Center.

Between the winter and early spring of 2004, the Implementation Team worked diligently to complete the draft Performance Work Statement (PWS) for the NSSC and released the first draft on March 26. Following completion and release, NASA HQ Procurement representatives and select members of the Implementation Team drafted and released the Request for Proposals (RFP) for comments to industry.

In early June of 2004, the NSSC Implementation Team, procurement representatives, NASA executives and over a hundred representatives from industry completed discussions on the Draft RFP and Draft PWS at the Doubletree located in Tyson’s Corner, VA. It had been an extremely productive and beneficial two days for both parties, filled with discussions, break-out sessions, brainstorming, and presentations focusing on the NSSC PWS and RFP. After many revisions, updates, and iterations, the final RFP hit the streets on September 13, 2004.

Despite the complexity of the RFP and PWS and the scope of the multidisciplinary work involved, NASA felt confident that interested and engaged offerors could complete their proposals in record time: NASA and the NSSC team’s confidence was a result of the process transparency that had occurred since the inception of the NSSC and the active and eager participation of industry in writing the RFP and PWS.

After what can only be categorized as a monumental effort by the 4 proposing offerors, boxes upon boxes began rolling into the NSSC Source Evaluation Board on November 8, 2005. Only those who responded to the RFP or reviewed the offerors’ proposals can fully appreciate the amount of effort poured into completing such an important and challenging task.

Over the course of that winter and into the spring (2004-2005), the NSSC SEB poured over contract, mission suitability, and cost volumes, interpreting technical approaches, translating staffing solutions, and wrangling with numbers and spreadsheets. Finally, in the Spring of 2005, the NSSC SEB was prepared to submit its findings to the Source Selection Authority and on May 9, 2005, NASA awarded the NSSC contract to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) to be located at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

Today, the NSSC’s Vision and Mission haven’t evolved much from the original idea that was expressed by the Implementation Team in 2002:

Vision – Unparalleled Service

Mission – To provide timely, accurate, high-quality, cost-effective, and customer-focused support for selected NASA business and technical services.

When we opened our doors for service in March 2006 the NSSC vision and mission was finally realized.  Stay tuned, it's going to contine to be exciting!