Discovery Program 2006 and Missions Of Opportunity |
Discovery Program 2006 and Missions Of Opportunity |
Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
Jan 3 2006, 10:19 PM
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#1
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Guests |
I'm not sure exactly which forum this fits in but NASA has just released the AO for Discovery Program 2006 and Missions of Opportunity. See the Discovery Program Acquisition Home Page for more details. Click on the "Discovery AO" link to download the PDF.
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Sep 13 2006, 06:15 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 220 Joined: 13-October 05 Member No.: 528 |
I always suspected that one of the appeals to Deep Impact was the fairly rapid mission. Countour (had it suceeded) also performed it's first comet encounter after only about a year if I recall correctly.
One of the original goals of Discovery was to reduce mission lifecycle from 10-15 years down to well under 10. This made the politicians who funded it feel like something would be accomplished not only during their lifetime, but maybe even while still in office. At the same time, you get more frequent missions, and the public might stay interested. But if you make all of your missions fly as long as StarDust (7 years) or Messenger (originally 5, now 7 years) the payoff is pushed out to a rather distant future. Add in the time required for the proposal, study, downselect, and development times, those missions were definately going over the 10 year mark. I tend to agree with you, one of the appeals to a Venus or Lunar mission is the quick flight time. Even so, with LRO and the whole Lunar Robotic program, I hope Discover and New Fronteirs skips the moon (no matter the scientific value) and go for more distant and less frequently visited targets. |
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