Decadal Survey - Minus One Week and Counting

This time next week, the next planetary Decadal Survey covering the years 2013-2022 will be public.  NASA has said that it will take its recommendations as its priorities, and Congress has shown deference to to the Surveys in allocating funds.  This Survey's report, "Visions and Voyages: Planetary Science in the Coming Decade," is likely to be both in-depth and long.  With this post, I'll begin discussing what I consider to be the key issues the Survey is likely to address.  Like a pre-game analysis, my goal is not to make specific predictions (why prove myself wrong in print?), but rather suggest pointers of what to look for.  And I'll allow myself the fun and hubris in one post of stating what I would have recommended should anyone have asked.  I'll also report on the poll in which you have voted for the missions you would like to see prioritized.

The Decadal Survey reports run hundreds of pages.  Often, much of text is devoted to summarizing current state of our knowledge and stating key questions to answer.  The topics that are likely to receive the greatest focus, however, will be the prioritized list of questions to pursue and the recommended missions to address them.  With that in mind, here are the questions that I will have in mind as I review the report:

1.  What budget is assumed?  Budget issues have led NASA to consider replacing its own mission for the top priority of the just completed astronomy and astrophysics Decadal Survey, the WFIRST dark energy and exoplanet mission, to seek a partnership on a similar proposed ESA mission.  NASA reportedly has also dropped plans for two missions prioritized by the Earth Science Decadal Survey, CLARREO and DESDynI, for lack of expected funding.  While the reasons for these decisions are more complicated than simply too little money in NASA's budget, these are cautionary tales.  The recent astronomy and astrophysics Survey members assumed that the upside budget was current funding adjusted for inflation and the downside was current funding eroded by inflation.   An extension of this year's planetary funding for the coming decade could support a major flagship mission, perhaps a smaller flagship mission, and several New Frontiers and Discovery missions.  An assumption of the budget plans in this year's FY12 budget plan with its declining budgets might mean a program of New Frontiers and Discovery missions.

2.  What are the major science questions that are prioritized?  The Survey might prioritize understanding the early history of terrestrial planets and potential for early life, leading to a high priority for the series of missions (>$6B in total) leading to a Mars sample return.  Alternatively, the Survey might prioritize investigating icy-ocean moons as potential habitats for life, leading to a high priority for the Jupiter Europa Orbiter and New Frontiers missions to the outer planets.  As a third possibility, the Survey might emphasize a balance of questions leading to more modest missions to a number of targets, but no major flagship missions to any one.  The assumed budget determines the scale and/or number of questions that can be addressed, but the prioritized questions lead directly to the missions that receive priority recommendations within that budget.

3.  What is the proposed mixture of more modest Principal Investor (PI) led missions and major institution-led Flagship missions?  There has always been a tension between doing a small number of big missions and a larger number of small missions.  Big missions can address questions that smaller missions cannot, but more smaller missions can partially address a wider range of questions and targets.  The recent astronomy and astrophysics Decadal Survey recommended completion of one gigantic mission, the James Webb Space Telescope, one modest Flagship scale mission, and prioritized increasing the number of small PI-led missions.    Big missions have an advantage that they can create their own momentum, but can also consume budgets if funds are cut or cost overruns occur.  Small missions may be a more robust strategy in face of tight budgets, but may also not be easier to not fund (which would you prefer to pitch to a Congressman to fund: Mars sample return, Jupiter Europa Orbiter, or the selection of the 15th Discovery mission?)

4.  What technologies are prioritized for development?  Planetary exploration is an inherently high tech field.  The missions that can fly can be only as good as the technologies that are ready to fly.  Developing new technologies often requires years of research, prototypes, and testing before a technology becomes ready for flight.  The technologies that the Survey prioritizes are the seeds for the missions that will fly in the decade of the 2020s.

ESA Medium Class Mission Candidates

ESA announced a list of four missions as candidates for its next medium class mission slot for launch in the early 2020s.  Two missions relevant to planetary selection were included.  Several others, including the Titan Aerial Explorer balloon mission and a Uranus Pathfinder orbiter mission were not selected.

The two planetary-related proposals are:

"MarcoPolo-R is a mission to return a sample of material from a primitive near-Earth asteroid (NEA) for detailed analysis in ground-based laboratories. The scientific data would help to answer key questions about the processes that occurred during planet formation and the evolution of the rocks which were the building blocks of terrestrial planets.  The mission would also reveal whether NEAs contain pre-solar material not yet found in meteorite samples, determine the nature and origin of the organic compounds they contain, and possibly shed light on the origin of molecules necessary for life.

"The Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory (EChO) would be the first dedicated mission to investigate exoplanetary atmospheres, addressing the suitability of those planets for life and placing our Solar System in context.  Orbiting around the L2 Lagrange point, 1.5 million km from Earth in the anti-sunward direction, EChO would provide high resolution, multi-wavelength spectroscopic observations. It would measure the atmospheric composition, temperature and albedo of a representative sample of known exoplanets, constrain models of their internal structure and improve our understanding of how planets form and evolve."

Also on the candidate list are the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing (LOFT) and the  Space-Time Explorer and Quantum Equivalence Principle Space Test (STE-QUEST) proposals.

You can read the complete press release at: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=48467

Decadal Survey Release Monday, March 7, at 6:30 p.m. EST

I will be watching on the livestream connection.

If you haven't voted in the poll for which missions you'd like to see prioritized, please do so in the three polls in the right column on the website: futureplanets.blogspot.com

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Source: Lunar and Planetary Institute

• Posted Wednesday, February 23, 2011

February 23, 2011

Members of the working press and news media are invited to attend this special event at the 42nd 

LPSC: NASA PLANETARY DECADAL SURVEY 2013-2022

Visions and Voyages: Planetary Science in the Coming Decade by Dr. Steve Squyres, Chair of the Decadal Committee

followed by the response from the NASA Science Mission Directorate by Dr. Jim Green

Monday, March 7, at 6:30 p.m. EST / 5:30 p.m. CST (GMT -6)

Waterway Ballroom 4

42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference
The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center
1601 Lake Robbins Dr.
The Woodlands, TX 77380

The Decadal Survey will be broadcast live at http://www.livestream.com/2011LPSC.
Media representatives are also invited to attend the Q&A session immediately following in the Panther Creek Room.

For more information about the 42nd LPSC, visit
www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2011/

For more information, contact:

Julie Tygielski
LPSC Media Contact
tygielski@lpi.usra.edu

Venus Climate Mission

With this post, I'll complete the longer summaries of the Decadal Survey mission concepts.  Barring breaking news, the next post will provide shorter summaries for several remaining concepts.

While two mission studies plus the SAGE New Frontiers proposal looked at landed missions, the Venus Climate Mission (VCM) would focus on the atmosphere.

The design of the VCM mission is to provide answers to the outstanding science questions about Venus' super-greenhouse gas climate system.  Previous missions have left numerous questions unanswered: "VCM will resolve current uncertainties in atmospheric motions, radiation balance, cloud composition and chemistry, while also making elemental and isotopic measurements that will reveal the origin and evolution of the atmosphere and the evolution of the extreme greenhouse climate."  A key goal will be to understand the relationships and feedbacks between these parameters to enable modeling of Venus' climate and other Earth-like planets.  Another key goal will be to understand how Venus' atmosphere transitioned from what is believed to have been Earth-like to the current extreme CO2 dominated greenhouse.

Winds would be expected to carry the balloon system in a spiral to the pole allowing the study across a range of latitudes.

Previous missions have shown that Venus' atmosphere and weather patterns are highly variable across space and time.  The goal of VCM "will be the first ever truly 3-dimensional (and to a large extent 4-dimensional, including many measurements of temporal changes) characterization of Venus’s atmosphere."  VCM would combine several different platforms to examine the atmosphere from the cloud tops to the surface.  A gondola balloon system would float at 55.5 km altitude for long term studies of atmospheric composition, structure, and winds.  A mini-probe would be dropped from the balloon system at the initial entry to descend to the surface to study composition, atmospheric structure, and winds.  Two small drop sondes would be released from the gondola over the course of its 21 day mission to probe structure and wind from the float altitude to the surface at different latitudes and times of day or night.  A camera on the data relay orbiter would track high altitude cloud movements.

The in-situ VCM elements.  The mini-probe would be released on deployment and the helium tanks would be dropped after balloon inflation.  The drop sondes would be released later to sample different atmospheric conditions from the float altitude to the surface.

Put together, "Simultaneous dynamical measurements from the Gondola/Balloon system and the Mini-Probe and Drop Sondes will allow, for the first time, concurrent measurements of vertical dynamics, cloud particle size and density, and cloud forming species over a wide range of longitudes, solar zenith angles, altitudes and times."

Overall cost of the mission is estimated to fall between approximately $1.1B and $1.6B, which would be slightly more than a New Frontiers mission to a smaller Flagship mission.

Several missions to continue the exploration of Venus' atmosphere from within the atmosphere have been put forward over the last decade.  They range from just a descent probe or a balloon-gondola only platform to multi-element concepts similar to VCM.  The European Venus Explorer (EVE) mission would use international collaboration to deliver a set of platforms that would in many ways be more capable than VCM.  ESA would provide an orbiter with a number instruments to remotely study the atmosphere and surface along with a balloon/gondola that in a summary appears similar to VCM's.  Russia would provide the launch vehicle and a descent probe that would also be a lander.  Japan might provide an additional balloon platform to operate at a different altitude.

Editorial Thoughts: Repeated studies have proposed similar sets of mission elements to answer the key questions about Venus' atmosphere and climate.  The proposals have differed primarily in how many elements were included in response to the possible funding.  Given the climate change occurring on our planet, studying Venus' climate seems a priority to me.  The multi-platforms called for in these proposals would make an international collaboration reasonably straightforward.  NASA, for example, might provide a more capable orbiter, a second descent probe/lander for an EVE, or additional balloons.  Alternatively, Europe could provide a more capable orbiter to compliment VCM's balloon/gondola and descent platforms.   Russia's planned lander would complement either scenario as would NASA's SAGE lander if selected.


The Decadal Survey mission concept studies can be found here.


Other Venus mission proposals with a strong atmospheric focus:


European Venus Explorer
Venus Flagship Lite
Venus Flagship
Venus Balloon

Official Take On NASA Budget Proposal

The following letter from Dr. James Green, NASA's Director of Planetary Science, has written a letter posted yesterday explaining NASA's recently proposed budget and the upcoming release of the Decadal Survey report on March 7.

Dr. Green explains that the decline in the planetary science projected budget in coming years is a result of NASA not being able to include the recommendations of the Decadal Survey in the budget submission.  After the release of the report, NASA will "create a new program structure" that will be reflected in future budget submissions.  He cautions, however, that in the current political climate that, "no one know what Planetary's FY 2012 budget or out year profile [projected future budgets] ... will be once enacted."

Editorial Note: Dr. Green's letter clarifies that the projected budgets for years beyond the current FY12 budget may be increased if necessary to accommodate the Survey's recommendations.  The notes in the budget documents from which I drew my analysis suggested this possibility, but in a political climate promoting flat or declining budgets for federal programs, I did not place sufficient emphasis on this.  I stand corrected, and this position is more encouraging for a vigorous program in the coming decade.

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LETTER FROM DR. JAMES GREEN
Dr. James Green writes about the NASA’s budget and anticipation of the Planetary Science Decadal Survey
Feb. 14, 2011

The President submits his budget to Congress on February 14th. This is a highly constrained budget for NASA taking into account the economic and political times. The Administration has had to make some tough decisions in nearly every area of NASA’s activities resulting in cutbacks or even eliminating some elements. Since we still don’t have a passed FY 2011 budget, the Administration calls the NASA budget from FY 2012-2016 a “notional budget.”

The Planetary Science Division budget just submitted has several important features for everyone to take note. First, although the top line run-out numbers are below the President’s budget projection of last year, the budget in FY 2012 is very healthy and is an adequate budget in a year for which we launch and land the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the most challenging scientific and engineering Mars mission ever! Secondly, it is a budget that is in anticipation of the Planetary Science Decadal Survey and; therefore, all potential new strategic missions, regardless of destination are not included in the out years.

Because the Administration is waiting for the results from the Planetary Science Decadal Survey, our out year budget decreases with time through FY 2016. The Planetary Decadal is for the years 2013 to 2022. After the Decadal is released, we will fill in the details, create a new program structure, and step up to the challenges of the next decade’s missions. That said, no one knows what Planetary’s FY 2012 budget or out year profile, just delivered to Congress, will be once enacted. Such is the nature of the times we find ourselves in.

So here is how we must begin to build the next decade’s planetary program. When the survey is released on March 7th (the current projected date), the Division of Planetary Science (DPS) is working with the Decadal Chair, Steve Squyres, to communicate what’s in the Survey, beginning with the planned roll-out at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, through town hall meetings around the country and numerous other ways. My NASA Planetary Sciences team will support this roll-out in every way we can. Why? Over the last two years, we all have invested heavily in support of this Survey. Hundreds of hours have been devoted supporting Dr. Squyres, his committee and subcommittees, with input from over 1600 planetary scientists across the world. I view this Survey as not only reflective of the next decade’s path forward, but also a validation of the foundation we have been building over the past decades. Each mission, each discovery, each success we have made across our planetary portfolio has been another brick in that foundation. Moreover, this Survey will serve as a guidepost to those early career scientists, engineers, and even high school students in making their career decisions and/or trade-offs in their research interests. So, this Survey serves as not just another report in my view, it is a prospectus representing Planetary Sciences’ mutual investment for our future.
I challenge everyone in the community to see themselves and their role in the support of the Survey. My plan is to provide a response before the end of this Fiscal Year. Yes, this is optimistic, but we have a narrow budget process window and also have three launches to focus on. As always, I will continue to solicit your feedback and advice as we begin to implement what is in the Survey.

Bottom line, we must all get behind the new Decadal Survey if we have a chance of having the kind of program that it delineates. If the planetary community becomes divided over the results of the Survey, then I can guarantee that we will have dreams not realized.