Monday, January 12, 2009

MSL Replan Presentations Available

The presentations to the Planetary Science Subcommittee detailing the Mars Science Laboratory budget issues and NASA's proposed replan are now posted on the web.

There's a general update of the planetary program which states that the selection of the next Flagship target (Saturn-Titan or Jupiter-Europa) remains on track for this February. The official release of the next New Frontiers announcement of opportunity is on hold pending final resolution of the MSL budget replan (but based on the proposed plan, it doesn't sound like the delay will be substantial).

There are several presentations summarizing the overall status of the MSL project, technical status, and budget issues. There's also a short and very nice summary of the MSL mission and science; I recommend this presentation for anyone not familiar with this ambitious and exciting mission..

The most interesting presentation (in my opinion) is the one that details the plan to handle the impacts of the MSL slip on the rest of the planetary program. There's no additional revelations that weren't in my previous summaries (here and here). For those with limited time, I've reproduced the three key slides here (clip on them for larger versions).




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