Jupiter flagship selected |
Jupiter flagship selected |
Feb 18 2009, 03:47 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 706 Joined: 3-December 04 From: Boulder, Colorado, USA Member No.: 117 |
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Feb 19 2009, 09:02 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 220 Joined: 13-October 05 Member No.: 528 |
Caveat: I'm trying to avoid a political discussion. Just answering his question with history as I remember it.
I don't think the term 'flagship' came into common use until around the time of the Decadal Survey in 2003. The survey concentrated mostly on non-Mars missions, so if I recall correctly in the Survey the term was used mostly to refer to the large outer planets missions like Galileo and Cassini. I never recall MSL reffered to as a flagship until around 2007-2008 when Michael Griffin called it one. The reccomendation was that in every decade NASA try to fly one flagship, a New Frontiers mission every 3 years, and a Discovery mission every 18 months. (notice the nice multiples of 3 here..... 1 Flagship, 3 New Frontiers, 6 Discovery) . The survey also recommended that if the missions could not be flown that often, that the ratio remain somewhat the same. In other words, do not attempt to fly 3 New Frontiers and 6 Discoveries in a decade, and then just keep putting off the Flagship. I read this as a deliberate attempt to get away from nearly a decade of all new mission starts essentially being Discovery class. More or less NASA seems to be attempting to follow this recommendation. Over the last few years the rate of New Frontiers Announcements of Opportunity comes along every 5-6 years, Discovery every 3 years or so. Six years after the Decadal Survey we now have (hopefully) a commitment to an outer planets flagship. Cassini - 1997, MSL - 2009 (goal), and EJSM - 2020, roughly speaking we are getting a flagship every decade or so. Again, this is just the events as I recall them. Not trying to start a funding debate. |
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