Discovery Mission Competition 2021 selection Options

[vjkane]

With the announcement of the down selected missions a few hours away for the final selection in spring 2021, it seemed time for a new thread.

Once with know the semi-finalists, this would be a good place to post links and news the the proposed missions.

Here's my list of known and possible proposals:


Concepts with ? have been presented in last year or two, appear to be the right scope for a Discovery mission, but weren't presented as Discovery missions

Asteroids - MANTIS

Centaurs - Centarus, Chiron, SW 1
Centaurs - Chimera SW 1 orbiter

Jupiter, Io - Io Volcano Explorer
Jupiter, Callisto - MAGIC orbiter


Luna - Compass Lunar Rover
Luna - Moon Diver
Luna - ISOCHRON sample return
Luna - Luna Volatile Orbiter ?
Luna - NanoSWARM

Mars - COMPASS climate orbiter
Mars - Ice Breaker polar lander

Neptune, Tritan - Trident

Venus - Veritas mapping orbiter
Venus - DaVinci+ atmospheric probe
Venus - HOVER hyperspectrol observer
Venus - Thalassa orbiter explore ocean loss ?

[vjkane]

I listened the the virtual LPSC 2020 virtual NASA headquarters briefing. Lori Glaze, the Planetary Science Division director, discussed the challenges selecting two missions from the current Discovery competition semifinalists. Prior to the InSight mission, principal investigators were required to include the development of the spacecraft and instruments, the launch vehicle, and mission operations from their PI budget.

Under the rules for this current competition, the PI budget (which has grown somewhat over time), the PI budget now pays for only the spacecraft and instrument development. NASA separately pays for the launch vehicle and mission operations. As a result, the projected total costs of the Lucy and Psyche missions will be nearly double the cost of the Dawn mission (note, the chart attache from her talk shows real year dollars, so the Dawn mission's cost in current dollars would be higher than in this chart).

Glaze says that she really, really wants to pick two missions from the current semifinalists, but the potential cost of these missions may not make that possible.

Net in my assessment: Total mission cost to NASA may have a big influence on the mission(s) selected. This would seem to favor the Venus missions, which have shorter lifetimes, and hence possibly lower mission operation costs, than the two outer solar system moon missions. It's difficult to estimate launch vehicle cost differences since I've seen no information on the launch energy required by any of the proposals: DAVINCI+ and VERITAS launch toward Venus, IVO launches for a Mars Gravity Assist, and Trident launches for an Earth gravity assist with following Venus, Earth, and Jupiter gravity assists.

The same slide (slide 19) is in this headquarters update given to the Planetary Science Advisory Committee a couple of weeks ago: Headquarters Update

Attached thumbnail(s)