Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
RELEASE: 11-328
NASA SELECTS SCIENCE INVESTIGATIONS FOR CONCEPT STUDIES
WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected 11 science proposals for evaluation as
potential future science missions. The proposals outline prospective
missions to study the Earth's atmosphere, the sun, the Milky Way
galaxy, and Earth-like planets around nearby stars.
The selections were made from responses to Announcements of
Opportunity for Explorer Missions and Explorer Missions of
Opportunity released by the agency last November. The proposals were
judged to have the best science value and feasible development plans.
"NASA continues to seek opportunities to push the cutting edge of
science," said Paul Hertz, chief scientist for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. "Innovative proposals like these will help
us better understand our solar system and the universe."
Five Explorer Mission proposals were selected from 22 submitted in
February. Each team will receive $1 million to conduct an 11-month
mission concept study. Mission costs are capped at $200 million each,
excluding the launch vehicle. In addition, one Explorer Mission
proposal was selected for technology development and will receive
$600,000. Five Mission of Opportunity proposals were selected from 20
submissions. Each will receive $250,000 to conduct an 11-month
implementation concept study. Mission costs are capped at $55 million
each.
Following the detailed mission concept studies, NASA plans to select
up to two of the Explorer Mission proposals and one or more of the
five Mission of Opportunity proposals in February 2013. The missions
would then proceed toward flight and some could launch by 2016.
The selected Explorer Mission proposals are:
-Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) Thomas Immel, Principal
Investigator (PI), University of California, Berkeley -- The mission
would fly instruments to understand the extreme variability in our
Earth's ionosphere, which can interfere with communications and
geopositioning signals.
-Fast INfrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer (FINESSE) Mark
Swain, PI, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California -- This
proposal would use a space telescope to survey more than 200 planets
around other stars. This would be the first mission dedicated to
finding out what comprises exoplanet atmospheres, what conditions or
processes are responsible for their composition, and how our solar
system fits into the larger family of planets.
-Observatory for Heteroscale Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling (OHMIC)
James Burch, PI, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas --
The mission would use a pair of spacecraft flying in formation to
study the processes that provide energy to power space weather
storms. These storms create auroras and other electromagnetic
activity that can impact orbiting spacecraft operations.
-Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) George Ricker, PI,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. -- Using an
array of telescopes, TESS would perform an all-sky survey to discover
transiting exoplanets, ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, in
orbit around the nearest and brightest stars in the sky. The
mission's primary goal would be to identify terrestrial planets in
the habitable zones of nearby stars.
-Atmosphere-Space Transition Region Explorer (ASTRE) Robert Pfaff Jr.,
PI, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. -- The mission
would study the interaction between the Earth's atmosphere and the
ionized gases of space. By flying excursions deep into the Earth's
upper atmosphere, its measurements would improve satellite drag
models and show how space-induced currents in electric power grids
originate and evolve with time.
The selected Explorer Mission of Opportunity proposals are:
-Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) Richard Eastes,
PI, University of Central Florida, Orlando -- This would involve an
imaging instrument that would fly on a commercial communications
satellite in geostationary orbit to image the Earth's thermosphere
and ionosphere.
-Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) Keith Gendreau,
PI, Goddard -- This mission would place an X ray timing instrument on
the International Space Station (ISS) to explore the exotic states of
matter within neutron stars and reveal their interior and surface
compositions.
-Coronal Physics Investigator (CPI) John Kohl, PI, Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Mass. -- A solar telescope
would be mounted on the ISS to investigate the processes that produce
the sun's fast and slow solar wind.
-Gal/Xgal U/LDB Spectroscopic/Stratospheric THz Observatory (GUSSTO)
Christopher Walker, PI, University of Arizona, Tucson -- This mission
would launch a high altitude balloon with a one-meter telescope to
provide a comprehensive understanding of the inner workings of our
Milky Way galaxy and one of our galaxy's companion galaxies, the
Large Magellanic Cloud.
-Ion Mass Spectrum Analyzer for SCOPE (IMSA), Lynn Kistler PI,
University of New Hampshire, Durham -- This partner mission of
opportunity would provide a composition instrument to the Japanese
cross-Scale Coupling in the Plasma universE (SCOPE) mission. SCOPE
will study fundamental space plasma processes including particle
acceleration, magnetic reconnection, and plasma turbulence.
The proposal selected for technology development funding is:
-The Exoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer
(EXCEDE), Glenn Schneider, PI, University of Arizona, Tucson -- The
technology development effort will enable studies of the formation,
evolution, and architectures of exoplanetary systems through direct
imaging.
The Explorer program is the oldest continuous program at NASA. It is
designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space using PI-led
space science investigations relevant to the agency's astrophysics
and heliophysics programs. Initiated with the Explorer 1 launch in
1958 that discovered the Earth's radiation belts and including the
Cosmic Background Explorer mission that led to Nobel prizes for their
investigators, the Explorer program has launched more than 90
missions. It is managed by Goddard for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate in Washington.
For more information about the Explorer program, visit:
http://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov
