NASA Selects Five Mars Orbiter Concept Studies

[Star One]

NASA has selected five U.S. aerospace companies to conduct concept studies for a potential future Mars orbiter mission. Such a mission would continue key capabilities including telecommunications and global high-resolution imaging in support of the agency’s Journey to Mars.

The companies contracted for these four-month studies are: The Boeing Company in Huntington Beach, California; Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver; Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California; Orbital ATK in Dulles, Virginia; and Space Systems/Loral in Palo Alto, California.

“We’re excited to continue planning for the next decade of Mars exploration,” said Geoffrey Yoder, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

The concept studies will address how a potential new Mars orbiter mission could best provide communications, imaging and operational capabilities. They also will assess the possibilities for supporting additional scientific instruments and functionalities, in addition to optical communications. The orbiter concept under study would take advantage of U.S. industry’s technology capacities by using solar electric propulsion to provide flexible launch, mission and orbit capabilities.

The Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, an organization designed to provide input to NASA from the Mars research science community, published a report six months ago on recommended science objectives for a Mars orbiter. These studies will provide input for assessing the feasibility of addressing these objectives. NASA also is pursuing partnership interest in contributing to this potential mission.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, is managing the concept studies under the direction of the agency’s Mars Exploration Program.

NASA is on an ambitious Journey to Mars that includes sending humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s. The agency’s robotic spacecraft are leading the way, with two active rovers, three active orbiters, the planned launch of the InSight lander in 2018, and development of the Mars 2020 rover.

For more information about NASA’s Journey to Mars, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/journeytomars

-end-

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
[email protected] / [email protected]

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
[email protected]

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-five-mars-orbiter-concept-studies

[Lar]

somebody (who's actually announced plans to send stuff to Mars) seems to be missing.. Was NASA thinking they aren't a viable candidate for an orbiter or that there is no need to give them work in this area or ? (or they bid but didn't make the cut?)

[Bob Shaw]

Meh. Mars orbiters are *so* 20th Century. At least we should have good coverage of Red Dragon's EDL...

[baldusi]

somebody (who's actually announced plans to send stuff to Mars) seems to be missing.. Was NASA thinking they aren't a viable candidate for an orbiter or that there is no need to give them work in this area or ? (or they bid but didn't make the cut?)

If it is the company I think, it is not in (yet) on the market of making satellites. I'm more worried about Northrop Grumman that did such an excellent job handling the JWST. It could be worse and give money to those guy at Rayteon that are making an impressive work with GPS OCX and delaying L1c and L5 by four years for the whole world.

[Star One]

somebody (who's actually announced plans to send stuff to Mars) seems to be missing.. Was NASA thinking they aren't a viable candidate for an orbiter or that there is no need to give them work in this area or ? (or they bid but didn't make the cut?)

If it is the company I think, it is not in (yet) on the market of making satellites. I'm more worried about Northrop Grumman that did such an excellent job handling the JWST. It could be worse and give money to those guy at Rayteon that are making an impressive work with GPS OCX and delaying L1c and L5 by four years for the whole world.

Not sure why you're slating NG for that when I thought the blame was apportioned on the NASA side.

[Jim]

somebody (who's actually announced plans to send stuff to Mars) seems to be missing.. Was NASA thinking they aren't a viable candidate for an orbiter or that there is no need to give them work in this area or ? (or they bid but didn't make the cut?)

What orbiting planetary spacecraft have they built later?

[Jim]

somebody (who's actually announced plans to send stuff to Mars) seems to be missing.. Was NASA thinking they aren't a viable candidate for an orbiter or that there is no need to give them work in this area or ? (or they bid but didn't make the cut?)

If it is the company I think, it is not in (yet) on the market of making satellites. I'm more worried about Northrop Grumman that did such an excellent job handling the JWST. It could be worse and give money to those guy at Rayteon that are making an impressive work with GPS OCX and delaying L1c and L5 by four years for the whole world.

What spacecraft has Raytheon built?
JWST was not just NG problems.

[Khadgars]

somebody (who's actually announced plans to send stuff to Mars) seems to be missing.. Was NASA thinking they aren't a viable candidate for an orbiter or that there is no need to give them work in this area or ? (or they bid but didn't make the cut?)

Are you referring to SpaceX?  SpaceX has zero experience building an orbiter, so why would they be on the list?

That doesn't mean a Falcon or FH couldn't launch the orbiter however...

[redliox]

Nice to know who they may chose, although not exactly exciting news by itself.  The only question that comes to mind is this: how much experience do they have building SEP systems in addition to satellites themselves?  I assume some nowadays since electric propulsion is getting utilized more in satellite attitude control.

Prior to this I think Blackstar mentioned NASA only intends to place a single instrument, an improved cousin of MRO's HiRISE.  Anything else is supposed to be contributed outside of NASA.  Apparently NASA is making this mission more oriented toward engineering with SEP and optical communication prime examples; so it's sort of like the old Mars Telecommunications Orbiter in disguise.

My only other interest in the NeMO project lies with the fact, if it indeed fully uses SEP, that it will make repeated flybys of the Martian moons en route to low Mars orbit.  I'll leave that for the Deimos and Phobos Spacecraft thread.

[baldusi]

The JWST requirement list was done only with "will" instead of "shall". Then they said "there's not enough budget to change it, and young ingineers use the words indistinctly, anyways". That's serious fault.
What I'm surprised is that Ball Aerospace is not there. They could and, arguably have more deep space experience than Loral. But, if I'm not mistaken, lack a GTO platform. Thus I'm starting to suspect that they might have given special emphasis to commercial adaptation.

[Blackstar]

Are you referring to SpaceX?  SpaceX has zero experience building an orbiter, so why would they be on the list?

Because they can do anything. They are the space program now. NASA doesn't do anything anymore.

[Lar]

Are you referring to SpaceX?  SpaceX has zero experience building an orbiter, so why would they be on the list?

Because they can do anything. They are the space program now. NASA doesn't do anything anymore.

Your sarcasm is unbecoming.

Given that SpaceX got money for Raptor development, and given that they want to start building fleets of satellites, it's not outside the realm of possibility that they might have bid this even if it's a way to retire some risk (as they are doing with Raptor) on someone else's dime.

I figured people in the know might know who else was in the running that didn't make the cut.

[ccdengr]

Note that SpaceX couldn't meet the basic qualifications for awards for this study, specifically MQ2 below.  Nor does Dragon count for MQ1, I think it's only 5 KW.

"Proposers must meet the following mandatory qualifications by time of award in order to be considered a qualified source and thereby eligible for award.
- MQ 1: Within the last 10 years, the proposer shall have successfully developed and flown a spacecraft with a solar power system of at least 10KW at 1 AU.
- MQ 2: Within the last 5 years, the proposer shall have successfully developed and flown a spacecraft that operated in deep space (beyond Earth orbit) or geosynchronous orbit (GEO).
- MQ 3: The proposer (both the prime contractor and its major lower-tier subcontractors for this effort) shall be a concern incorporated in the United States of America."

[high road]

Are you referring to SpaceX?  SpaceX has zero experience building an orbiter, so why would they be on the list?

Because they can do anything. They are the space program now. NASA doesn't do anything anymore.

There's the reason why SpaceX shouldn't be doing orbiters (unless orbiters are part of their planned architecture so they need to get the experience anyway): spreading their efforts over too many projects will slow down progress, just like NASA.

[Arb]

It's a while since I read the RFP (or whatever it was called) but it struck me at the time that if SpaceX come even close to doing what they propose then they may well have in place a small CommX constellation at Mars some time before this orbiter launches.

Such a constellation would more than meet the requirements[1] in the RFP (except, perhaps, for the camera).

But they may yet fail (unlikely as that seems). So it is as well for NASA to proceed with business as usual in the meantime. Especially given the glacial speed of traditional developments.

[1] In terms of the raw communications capabilities between Mars and Earth. There were quite a few requirements that appeared unnecessarily prescriptive; defining not just a required capability but a preferred way of achieving it. It seems that some of the lessons of the CRS contract have yet to be fully appreciated.

[Lar]

There's the reason why SpaceX shouldn't be doing orbiters (unless orbiters are part of their planned architecture so they need to get the experience anyway): spreading their efforts over too many projects will slow down progress, just like NASA.

Pretty sure orbiters are going to be part of their long term architecture, we'll find out in September. Hence my comment, apparently too naiive for the likes of some, that maybe this was a way to gain experience or offload development cost, ala Raptor upper stage. 

But if the proposal has been wired to ensure new entrants are excluded, so be it.

[Jim]

It seems that some of the lessons of the CRS contract have yet to be fully appreciated.

CRS has no relation to this and hence no lessons are applicable.. There is no COTS.  You either have  abilities necessary or you don't bid

[baldusi]

"Proposers must meet the following mandatory qualifications by time of award in order to be considered a qualified source and thereby eligible for award.
- MQ 1: Within the last 10 years, the proposer shall have successfully developed and flown a spacecraft with a solar power system of at least 10KW at 1 AU.
- MQ 2: Within the last 5 years, the proposer shall have successfully developed and flown a spacecraft that operated in deep space (beyond Earth orbit) or geosynchronous orbit (GEO).
- MQ 3: The proposer (both the prime contractor and its major lower-tier subcontractors for this effort) shall be a concern incorporated in the United States of America."

So Ball Aerospace failed MQ1? When NG complied with MQ1 and MQ2?

[Jim]

NG has many spacecraft in GSO

[baldusi]

NG has many spacecraft in GSO

I finally found it: DSP-23, launched 9 years ago. Did they launched anything else to GEO or deep space after that?
BTW, besides JWST the other big space program they have been prime was NPOESS. Apparently they are extremely unlucky and get all the bad clients on important projects.