[X] My Assistant

[elakdawalla]

I just posted some notes from a conversation with Dawn Co-I Mark Sykes in my blog.

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000475/

--Emily

[volcanopele]

I'm sorry, but I definitely don't support Sykes' explanation. Yes, the stand down order cost them even more if they were to get started up again, but they already had 40 million in cost overruns by that point. Like Mike and Alex said, at some point NASA has to say enough is enough and make an example out of one of these missions. I just wish they would use the same logic on a few other programs

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

I just posted some notes from a conversation with Dawn Co-I Mark Sykes in my blog.

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000475/

--Emily

Nice interview. Sykes's comments are interesting and informative, and his frustration (anger?) understandable, though I don't know what to make of some of his statements. Frankly, some of them are completely at odds with what has leaked out over the past several months, but his have the advantage of detail. Having said that, it would be interesting to hear NASA SMD's in-depth side of the story, too, since there are always two (or more) sides to every story. I wouldn't wait for that to happen, though.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Actually, despite my snarf about the ISS, I'm inclined to agree with Mike Caplinger that this is really a separate issue. If you set cost limits for competitive proposals at all, you HAVE to back them up at some point -- or honest cost estimations by the competitive teams will instantly disappear. And Dawn had gone way over the limit, whereas Messenger had just gone a small way over it. They had to draw the line at some point. (The cost overrun on Kepler is now absolutely horrendous, but, as Andy Dantzler told us in exasperated tones at the November COMPLEX meeting, that's no longer his responsibility -- the Universe Directorate is determined to hold onto it anyway. Maybe this is because, with the delays in SIM, Kepler is the only way to get the census data on the frequency of Earthlike planets which we need in order to decide which of the two alternate designs for TPF to adopt.)

So: if the Big Bad Station hadn't gobbled up still more of NASA's budget, they might have been more likely to bend the rules and allow Dawn to continue -- but they probably shouldn't have.

And I'm inclined to agree that Cowing jumping NASA for informing Russell about the cancellation on the way to his mother's funeral is a cheap shot -- NASA is not composed of clairvoyants. (Would that they were!)

[odave]

So what will happen to the Dawn hardware? Will it get put in storage, or will it get dis-assembled and the components used elsewhere?

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

One small side note: the Dawn team, contrary to John Rehling, regarded the elimination of the magnetometer from the mission as much more important than the removal of the laser altimeter. The magnetometer could not only have told us what kinds of metallic cores both worlds possessed; it could have detected the induced magnetic field from any subsurface ocean on Ceres (which is a real possibility.) The Dawn team removed the laser altimeter almost as soon as cost trouble began, but they were publicly heartbroken to lose the magnetometer.

[Toma B]

I find it difficult to believe that NASA will end space mission that is 98% finished...why anybody did not noticed it before...

This is awful!!!

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

What Sykes said was that "98% of [Dawn's] hardware [has been] delivered." That is an entirely different proposition from a "space mission that is 98% finished."

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Since Mike's post contains the phrase "seems to be", are you agreeing that the part following the "seem" seems to be true, or is true? I'm not just being picky; I'm wondering if you have a different/clearer evaluation of that.

Only the rumors I've heard about Orbital, which, quite frankly, Sykes appears to have confirmed, even if in a backhanded manner.

Clearly, a mission like this will be flown one day (at least, the science goals will be pursued again; no guarantee that Ceres and Vesta will be targets of the very same craft).

From what I understand, the Discovery science review panel rated the original Dawn science portion of the proposal very high, so I agree that the goals (probably with Ceres and Vesta as the targets) will remain high-priority.

If this announcement hit the PI at a time of personal tragedy, that's very unfortunate, but I'm not sure how in principle an organization could/should avoid that potential.

I find myself in rare agreement with Bruce here; I think it was a cheap shot accusation. I am fully sypathetic to Russell's loss, especially after having lost my own father over a year ago, but as others have noted, how is NASA responsible for the coincidental timing of notification of cancellation?

Frankly, you do tend to find these type of "human interest" anecdotes in these types of stories. It's sort of like a newspaper story of a victim of a natural disaster being told they are going to be audited by the IRS. It's sad but it happens. Witness the accounts in recent stories that Fiona Harrison found out about the cancellation of her Explorer-class mission NuSTAR during the February 6 press conference and not by, say, a personal phone call from Griffin or Cleave. I guess I wouldn't have been surprised to read that she found this out on the same day she had a root canal operation.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

In Sykes' interview with Emily, despite his energetic efforts to pin ALL the blame on NASA HQ, the fact remains: at the time of the stand-down order, Dawn was $63 million over its original $350 million cost cap. Sykes claims that a lot of that is due to NASA's retroactive order for an increase in the mission's cost reserves; but the reason for that was that Messenger and Deep Impact had both ended up costing far more than estimated at the time they were picked -- which made it entirely reasonable to assume that the same thing would probably happen to Dawn. (And to Kepler -- which, sure enough, is now well over the $500 million mark.) Note that even with that $63 million budget hike over the original cost cap, Dawn was STILL having severe developmental problems.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

P.S.: "Rare agreement", Alex? See if you get invited to MY next birthday party...

[Holder of the Tw...]

I just posted some notes from a conversation with Dawn Co-I Mark Sykes in my blog.

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000475/

--Emily

I was completely unaware there were any European contributions to this project. The article here states that equipment was "contributed". Until now, I was under the impression the framing camera and other equipment were purchased. Does anyone know how much, in dollar terms, agencies outside of NASA paid for this?

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

NASA’s Dawn Asteroid Mission Cancelled
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer, Space.com
posted: 03 March 2006
01:25 pm ET

Well, I was wrong. It looks as if NASA HQ is getting some of its side of the story out. Here are a couple of interesting excerpts, one of the "he said, she said" variety:

"That [independent assessment] team reported to NASA in January that there were 29 individual major issues that needed to be dealt with before Dawn was ready to go, Dantzler said."

This doesn't sound (a whole lot) like what Sykes told Emily viz., "[T]he conclusion of the independent assessment team, which was delivered to Headquarters on January 27, was that it 'does not see any reason that the DAWN Project cannot be achieved within the identified cost and schedule changes proposed.' In other words, there's no technical barriers to the project going forward."

Another intersting excerpt from the Space.com story:

"Dantzler told SPACE.com that NASA is looking at distributing Dawn hardware to other missions currently being considered or in the future. 'Some of the subsystems should be good for other spacecraft,' he said."

It doesn't sound like Dawn is going to be revived; in fact, it looks as if it is going to be cannibalized for spare parts.

[JRehling]

One small side note: the Dawn team, contrary to John Rehling, regarded the elimination of the magnetometer from the mission as much more important than the removal of the laser altimeter. The magnetometer could not only have told us what kinds of metallic cores both worlds possessed; it could have detected the induced magnetic field from any subsurface ocean on Ceres (which is a real possibility.) The Dawn team removed the laser altimeter almost as soon as cost trouble began, but they were publicly heartbroken to lose the magnetometer.

I agree with the scientific reasoning when my face is rubbed in it; I'm just exercising the amateurish snobbery of liking what I can see, and I can't see particles or fields.

I suppose with Ceres, the L.A. would seem to be only marginally interesting, since local altimetry could be had from shadows, etc. But with a (perhaps uniquely) weirdly shaped world like Vesta, who knows how significant a precise topographical map might be regarding the initial differentiation and that Big Impact in its past?

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

I was completely unaware there were any European contributions to this project. The article here states that equipment was "contributed". Until now, I was under the impression the framing camera and other equipment were purchased. Does anyone know how much, in dollar terms, agencies outside of NASA paid for this?

I haven't seen any of the cost breakdown information for Dawn. As for instruments provided by other countries, these are typically the result of barter agreements between NASA and the other countries' space agencies (i.e., on a no-exchange-of-funds basis).