NASA to delay subsequent New Frontiers competition – SpaceNews
WASHINGTON — NASA will hold off the future simply call for proposals for the New Frontiers method of planetary science missions by two many years, a move that could also change what missions will be qualified to contend.
In a May possibly 12 assertion, NASA claimed it was suspending the launch of the announcement of chance (AO) for the fifth New Frontiers mission. NASA had planned to release a draft version of that AO in October, with the remaining version released a year later. The agency reported the draft AO will now be launched in Oct 2023, and the remaining version in Oct 2024. Proposals will be due to NASA 90 times immediately after the launch of the closing AO.
“While there experienced been strategies to start off the proposal cycle in 2022, the delays are driven by other missions getting in peak improvement and COVID-relevant difficulties in the broader Planetary Science Division portfolio,” the company said in a brief assertion about the postponement.
In a different concept to the planetary science community, NASA stated its determination to postpone the start of the fourth New Frontiers mission, Dragonfly, from 2026 to 2027, contributed to the determination to postpone the AO for the upcoming New Frontiers mission. NASA mentioned in September that it postponed the start for the reason that of variables unrelated to the mission by itself, this kind of as broader pressures on NASA’s planetary science price range induced by the pandemic.
“It was purely a headquarters determination to deal with some of the price tag phasing issues that we have,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, claimed of the Dragonfly delay at a meeting of the Outer Planets Evaluation Group (OPAG) in February.
The delay in the subsequent New Frontiers opposition is meant to hold that mission’s spending budget from overlapping with Dragonfly. “The up to date AO schedule estimate lets collection of the fifth New Frontiers mission at close to the time of Dragonfly’s start, thereby steering clear of the price range pressure of obtaining two New Frontiers missions in advancement at the exact same time,” NASA explained in its information to the science community.
At many conferences earlier this yr, Glaze and other NASA officials provided no indications that the New Frontiers AO would be delayed. At a NASA town hall meeting March 18 during the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Convention, Glaze stated NASA was making ready to keep a “community city hall” in the spring about the New Frontiers AO to deliver “more info about what we hope to go into the draft AO, which will be produced in the fall.”
The two-12 months hold off in the future New Frontiers competitiveness, nevertheless, has outcomes past agenda. Not like the Discovery plan of decrease-expense planetary science missions, which is open to just about all photo voltaic system locations past Earth, New Frontiers is limited to a handful of prospective locations and mission styles, based on direction from the planetary science decadal survey.
NASA experienced not finalized the record of “mission themes” for the New Frontiers 5 AO as of earlier this year. Amongst those people viewed as ended up a comet area sample return mission, a mission to Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, a lunar geophysical network, a sample return mission to the moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin, a Saturn probe, a mission to Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus and a Venus orbiter.
In a presentation at the OPAG meeting in February, NASA’s Curt Niebur said that listing of mission themes would rely on other aspects, these kinds of as the consequence of an ongoing Discovery level of competition, in which NASA will select up to two missions this summer months. The inclusion of a lunar sample return mission would also depend on variety of landing internet sites for NASA’s Artemis human lunar exploration program.
However, the Nationwide Academies is at the moment working on a new planetary science decadal survey, owing to be launched in the spring of 2022. That could give a new record of likely locations for New Frontiers missions various from the a person NASA experienced been considering, upending setting up that was already underway less than the initial routine.
“The new AO release date places the fifth New Frontiers mission firmly in the time period of time currently being deliberated on by the ongoing planetary science decadal survey,” NASA said in its notice to experts. The company, it extra, “intends to use the effects of this decadal survey, expected in early 2022, to tutorial the New Frontiers 5 AO.”
The decadal study, even though, is not the only issue in determining the list of prospective New Frontiers mission themes. Just before NASA held the levels of competition for the fourth New Frontiers mission, it additional an “Ocean Worlds” theme in response to congressional path to produce an “Ocean Worlds Exploration Program” that provided Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus and Titan. That permitted the Dragonfly mission, a drone that will fly in Titan’s atmosphere, to contend and be picked for improvement.
WASHINGTON — NASA will hold off the future simply call for proposals for the New Frontiers method of planetary science missions by two many years, a move that could also change what missions will be qualified to contend.
In a May possibly 12 assertion, NASA claimed it was suspending the launch of the announcement of chance (AO) for the fifth New Frontiers mission. NASA had planned to release a draft version of that AO in October, with the remaining version released a year later. The agency reported the draft AO will now be launched in Oct 2023, and the remaining version in Oct 2024. Proposals will be due to NASA 90 times immediately after the launch of the closing AO.
“While there experienced been strategies to start off the proposal cycle in 2022, the delays are driven by other missions getting in peak improvement and COVID-relevant difficulties in the broader Planetary Science Division portfolio,” the company said in a brief assertion about the postponement.
In a different concept to the planetary science community, NASA stated its determination to postpone the start of the fourth New Frontiers mission, Dragonfly, from 2026 to 2027, contributed to the determination to postpone the AO for the upcoming New Frontiers mission. NASA mentioned in September that it postponed the start for the reason that of variables unrelated to the mission by itself, this kind of as broader pressures on NASA’s planetary science price range induced by the pandemic.
“It was purely a headquarters determination to deal with some of the price tag phasing issues that we have,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, claimed of the Dragonfly delay at a meeting of the Outer Planets Evaluation Group (OPAG) in February.
The delay in the subsequent New Frontiers opposition is meant to hold that mission’s spending budget from overlapping with Dragonfly. “The up to date AO schedule estimate lets collection of the fifth New Frontiers mission at close to the time of Dragonfly’s start, thereby steering clear of the price range pressure of obtaining two New Frontiers missions in advancement at the exact same time,” NASA explained in its information to the science community.
At many conferences earlier this yr, Glaze and other NASA officials provided no indications that the New Frontiers AO would be delayed. At a NASA town hall meeting March 18 during the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Convention, Glaze stated NASA was making ready to keep a “community city hall” in the spring about the New Frontiers AO to deliver “more info about what we hope to go into the draft AO, which will be produced in the fall.”
The two-12 months hold off in the future New Frontiers competitiveness, nevertheless, has outcomes past agenda. Not like the Discovery plan of decrease-expense planetary science missions, which is open to just about all photo voltaic system locations past Earth, New Frontiers is limited to a handful of prospective locations and mission styles, based on direction from the planetary science decadal survey.
NASA experienced not finalized the record of “mission themes” for the New Frontiers 5 AO as of earlier this year. Amongst those people viewed as ended up a comet area sample return mission, a mission to Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, a lunar geophysical network, a sample return mission to the moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin, a Saturn probe, a mission to Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus and a Venus orbiter.
In a presentation at the OPAG meeting in February, NASA’s Curt Niebur said that listing of mission themes would rely on other aspects, these kinds of as the consequence of an ongoing Discovery level of competition, in which NASA will select up to two missions this summer months. The inclusion of a lunar sample return mission would also depend on variety of landing internet sites for NASA’s Artemis human lunar exploration program.
However, the Nationwide Academies is at the moment working on a new planetary science decadal survey, owing to be launched in the spring of 2022. That could give a new record of likely locations for New Frontiers missions various from the a person NASA experienced been considering, upending setting up that was already underway less than the initial routine.
“The new AO release date places the fifth New Frontiers mission firmly in the time period of time currently being deliberated on by the ongoing planetary science decadal survey,” NASA said in its notice to experts. The company, it extra, “intends to use the effects of this decadal survey, expected in early 2022, to tutorial the New Frontiers 5 AO.”
The decadal study, even though, is not the only issue in determining the list of prospective New Frontiers mission themes. Just before NASA held the levels of competition for the fourth New Frontiers mission, it additional an “Ocean Worlds” theme in response to congressional path to produce an “Ocean Worlds Exploration Program” that provided Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus and Titan. That permitted the Dragonfly mission, a drone that will fly in Titan’s atmosphere, to contend and be picked for improvement.