Discovery Program 2006 and Missions Of Opportunity Options

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Of course, close observers will note that by now it is "Proposal Receipt + 5 months" for the AO selections, assuming there are any, to be announced.

[Mariner9]

I must be a close observer, because I've been wondering when in September the announcement (if any) will arrive.

Normally I don't really have any guesses as to what kind of missions we will see in the finalists, but I can't help wondering this time if we will see a Venus probe of some kind.

Lunar, Mars, and now even Mars moons, are off limits. We've done several comet missions, and two asteroid missions, and the only Jupiter proposals ever made under discovery were all wrapped up into the Juno New Fronteirs mission. The Messenger mission nearly broke the bank, but it is now safely on it's way to Mercury.

While asteroids and comets still have lots of targets still out there, I'd bet good money on at least one of the comet flyby "Missions of Opportunity" to be selected, so it just seems like it might finally be Venus' turn.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Yeah, these downselects are notoriously unpredictable, which, I guess, is a good thing from a fairness standpoint. Now whether the selections will make any sense is another matter

I, too, think some sort of Venus proposal could make the cut. However, I wouldn't be surprised if a cometary/asteroid mission(s) is/are selected, especially given Stardust's success, the CONTOUR failure, the partial failure of Hayabusa, and the descope, near-death of Dawn.

Having said that, nothing would surprise me at this point, except, of course, another round of non-selections, as happened with the previous Discovery AO.

[mcaplinger]

Lunar, Mars, and now even Mars moons, are off limits.

Lunar missions weren't off-limits as far as I can tell from the AO. At least, we proposed one.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Lunar missions weren't off-limits as far as I can tell from the AO. At least, we proposed one.

My understanding of this AO, too, is that it only excludes Mars.

[JRehling]

I, too, think some sort of Venus proposal could make the cut.

I think there's a kind of "knapsack problem" going on with Venus exploration. There's a will (or so we infer) to move ahead, but since missions must be shoehorned into Discovery/NF size caps, it may be inconvenient to design a series of missions each at just the right size and still go forward sensibly exploring the place.

One simple experiment that must be flown is a top-notch mass spectrometer to nail down the minor atmospheric constituents. The cloud composition is still partially a mystery (two mysteries: is there chlorine, and what is the UV-dark stuff). Some descent imaging to test the feasability of aerobot-height multispectral visual surveys would be a logical precedent to a later, bigger mission. And surface studies galore remain.

When you take the ESA orbiter, the possible ISAS orbiter yet to come, and the vaguely-scoped NF mission to come, it's not clear if any kind of mission we've ever seen proposed before would squeeze neatly into the gap between the already pencilled-in missions. Whereas the close-finishers Discovery missions to Venus that have come before have all been orbiters, an entry probe could be the possible winner now. That only means that the mission has to stand up to competition that may return science for weeks or months while such a Venus mission would only return data for hours. Of course, Deep Impact didn't last much longer than that -- but it had a little more glory to it than a simple entry probe.

I'd love to see an entry probe that performs 15 good minutes of surface science after landing. That would be a great mission.

The instrument failure on VEx opens a small window for another Venus orbiter to recover that science, but that doesn't sound like a tremendous concept by itself.

[gpurcell]

I wonder if something they might try to do is pick a mission with a fairly rapid science turnaround. That would (to an extent) make up for the massive delay in this latest round. A quick simple mission to Venus or the Moon might be just the trick!

[Mariner9]

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.

[Bart]

Any news on the selections? I make it now Proposal Receipt + 6 Months and I haven't heard a peep.

Bart

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

From Brad Thomson, glogging for Emily, about NASA Night at DPS:

Colleen [Hartmann] also dispelled a rumor that an announcement in the Discovery Program would be forthcoming this evening. Discovery Missions are lower cost missions that are competitively selected every few years. There are some 20 missions competing for a single slot, so competition is fierce.

That's not really much news but Thomson noted that Hartmann said "Mars Scout selection will occur in before the year is out."

[NASA Geek]

NASA has announced selections for the Discovery 2006 AO. The press release is posted on SpaceRef:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=21149

[Mariner9]

Seven months and counting.... and the Discovery mission canidates are finally chosen.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/oct/H...scovery_AO.html


"NASA Monday selected concept studies for missions that would return a sample of an enigmatic asteroid, probe the chemistry of Venus' atmosphere and reveal the interior structure and history of the Earth's moon.

Also selected for further study are three missions of opportunity that would make new use of two NASA spacecraft that have completed their primary objectives."


Much to my surprise, VESPER has reappeared and made it into the Concept study phase. I figured that after being studied so many times that it was cursed to never get selected, but maybe it is something like "Inside Jupiter", which kept popping up in different proposals until it finally gained approval as the JUNO mission under New Frontiers.

The moon mission seems somewhat lacking in scope.... a dedicated gravity mapping mission. I'm sure you can learn a lot doing that, but it also seems like it could be a rather limited payload, and cheap mission. I find myself wondering if the reason it made the cut is to have a fallback mission if the other two come back as too expensive or infeasable for some reason.

[nprev]

I like the new missions for Deep Impact and Stardust, though.

This "EPOCh" mission for DI sounds intriguing:

"The Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh) mission would use the high-resolution camera on the Deep Impact spacecraft to search for the first Earth-sized planets detected around other stars. L. Drake Deming of Goddard is EPOCh's principal investigator."

...what does DI have that Hubble doesn't? Are we just talking availability here, or does DI's HRC have better resolution for such a task?

[Stephen]

Seven months and counting.... and the Discovery mission canidates are finally chosen.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/oct/H...scovery_AO.html

"missions of opportunity": that's a term of phrase NASA may now want to think more carefully about using for these missives; it kind of sounds like they're talking about the ongoing adventures of a certain Mars rover
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Stephen

[Jim from NSF.com]

"missions of opportunity": that's a term of phrase NASA may now want to think more carefully about using for these missives; it kind of sounds like they're talking about the ongoing adventures of a certain Mars rover
======
Stephen

Only a small audience would think of it that way. I worked MER and didn't think of it that way. They were never Spirit and Opportunity, they are MER A & B to me.

targets of ....., missions of ......, payloads of......, the term is used in many more ways than referring one rover