SIMPLEx small missions

SIMPLEx small missions by vjkane on 20 Jun, 2019 14:26
SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) is NASA's small planetary mission program. I understand that the cost limit for these missions is $55M, or about 1/10 of a Discovery mission.

The announcement of opportunity for this selection can be found at https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/viewrepositorydocument/cmdocumentid=607166/solicitationId=%7B0A4F21F7-08E3-B2B3-7DE3-0BF5FEE76B8E%7D/viewSolicitationDocument=1/DRAFT%20SIMPLEx%20PEA.pdf

June 19, 2019
SIMPLEx Small Satellite Concept Finalists Target Moon, Mars and Beyond

NASA has selected three finalists among a dozen concepts for future small satellites. The finalists include a 2022 robotic mission to study two asteroid systems, twin spacecraft to study the effects of energetic particles around Mars, and a lunar orbiter to study water on the Moon. At least one of these missions is expected to move to final selection and flight.

The missions will contribute to NASA’s goal of understanding our solar system’s content, origin and evolution. They will also support planetary defense, and help fill in knowledge gaps as NASA moves forward with its plans for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.

The selected finalists are:

Janus: Reconnaissance Missions to Binary Asteroids will study the formation and evolutionary implications for small “rubble pile” asteroids and build an accurate model of two binary asteroid bodies. A binary asteroid is a system of two asteroids orbiting their common center of mass. The principal investigator is Daniel Scheeres, University of Colorado. Lockheed Martin will provide project management.

Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE): This mission’s objective is to characterize (on multiple scales) the acceleration processes driving escape from Mars’ atmosphere, as well as how the atmosphere responds to the constant outflow of the solar wind flowing off the Sun. The principal investigator for this mission is Robert Lillis, University of California, Berkeley. UC Berkeley will also provide project management.

Lunar Trailblazer will directly detect and map water on the lunar surface to determine how its form, abundance, and location relate to geology. The principal investigator is Bethany Ehlmann, California Institute of Technology. The Jet Propulsion Lab will provide project management.

“Each of these concepts holds the promise to deliver big science in a small package," said Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate. "Their miniaturized size enables these systems to be developed at reduced overall costs while performing targeted science missions and testing brand new technologies that future missions can use."

The finalists were chosen from 12 proposals submitted in 2018 through an opportunity called the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx).

Following an extensive and competitive peer review process, these concepts were selected based on their potential science value and feasibility of development plans. They will receive funding for up to one year to further develop and mature the concept designs, concluding with a preliminary design review (PDR). NASA will evaluate the PDR results, and after that expects to select one or more of the mission concepts to proceed into implementation and flight.

Using small spacecraft -- less than 400 pounds, or 180 kilograms in mass -- SIMPLEx selections will conduct stand-alone planetary science missions. Each will share their ride to space with either another NASA mission or a commercial launch opportunity.

“The SIMPLEx program provides invaluable opportunities for increasingly innovative ways to conduct planetary science research,” said Lori S. Glaze, Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA.

The selected investigations will be managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama as part of the Solar System Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The program conducts space science investigations in the Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, guided by NASA’s agency priorities and the Decadal Survey process of the National Academy of Sciences.

For information on NASA’s small satellite activities, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats
#1 by theinternetftw on 20 Jun, 2019 15:34
An announcement video from Dr. Zurbuchen, along with short introductory videos for each project recorded by the PIs.

https://twitter.com/Dr_ThomasZ/status/1141447362042302466

https://twitter.com/Dr_ThomasZ/status/1141450174797156357

Transcripts of the PI videos:

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Bethany Ehlmann: My name is Bethany Ehlmann, and I'm a professor of planetary science at Caltech and a Research Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as the Principal Investigator of the Lunar Trailblazer mission. We're excited to be a part of NASA's latest SIMPLEx selection and look forward to following up on one of the most exciting discoveries of the late 2000s, which is water on airless bodies, and in particular the moon.

Lunar Trailblazer is a small satellite, led by Caltech, built by Ball Aerospace, managed by JPL, with a JPL imaging spectrometer and thermal camera from the University of Oxford. Our goal is to map water on the moon. We will look at the form of water on the sunlit side of the moon. Is it H2O? Is it OH, hydrogen stuck on to the oxygen in silicates? So we'll figure out the form of water on the moon, and we'll also peer into the permanently shadowed craters on the moon to map where water ice is, determine how much is there, and then determine whether it could be a resource for future human explorers. We look forward to working with NASA on this mission.

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Robert Lillis: The space around Mars is a windy place. Ionized gas flows constantly from the sun, blowing a gale of it at a million miles per hour. This flow, known as the solar win, impacts Mars's upper atmosphere directly, causing aurora and stripping Mars's atmosphere away. Just like winds here on Earth, the solar wind is often gusty, causing Mars's near-space environment to change rapidly on timescales of minutes or less.

Understanding this dynamic behavior requires more than one vantage point. EscaPADE is a two spacecraft mission to trace the flow of matter and energy from the solar wind and into and out of Mars's upper atmosphere. From complementary orbits, our twin spacecraft will help us untangle the cause and effect of the solar wind's influence on Mars. Here at the UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, we are delighted that NASA has selected EscaPADE for a detailed study. We're looking forward to getting to work with our partners on this exciting mission.

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Dan Scheeres: Hi, I'm Dan Scheeres, the PI of the Janus mission. I'm sitting here in my hotel room in Japan where it's the middle of the night. I just gotten woken up and was given the good news that NASA has selected Janus as part of the SIMPLEx program.

What is Janus? We are going to send two suitcase-sized spacecraft to flyby two binary asteroid systems to study a binary asteroid system up close for the very first time. What's a binary asteroid? It's a small body that at some point has spun up so fast that it has ripped itself apart and come back together again as a mini-version of the Earth-moon system. So you have two bodies orbiting around each other. They're so small that you could actually jump from one body to the other body in space. No one's studied them up close before, so Janus will be the first to do this. And it's going to give us insight into the formation of the solar system and how the solar system has evolved up to the current day and is still evolving.

So we're super-excited about this. We've got a lot of work to do, and Janus is going to be a brand new type of science, studying these small binary asteroid systems and what their geophysics are. So, super-excited. This is Dan Scheeres, signing off from Japan. And hopefully you'll hear a lot more about Janus moving forward.

Edit: This bit from the Zurbuchen video seems worth quoting as well:

Quote
Earlier this year, the two MarCO spacecraft became the first small satellites to fly through interplanetary space and pipe down the data from InSight during its landing back to Earth. That opened up the door for the small satellite revolution to go all throughout interplanetary space. And the SIMPLEx program, the Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program, is designed to do just that.
#2 by vjkane on 21 Jun, 2019 13:47
NASA Selects Caltech-led Lunar Mission as a Finalist

Press Release From: California Institute of Technology
Posted: Thursday, June 20, 2019

NASA has selected a Caltech-led mission to send a small satellite to quantify and study water on the Moon. The project is one of three finalists selected from more than a dozen proposals for small satellite missions -- at least one of which is expected to move to final selection and flight.

The Lunar Trailblazer would follow up on one of the most surprising discoveries of the late 2000s: the detection of water on the Moon’s surface, long thought impossible because of its exposure to the vacuum of space. Trailblazer would map the tiny amounts of water and of hydroxyl (a compound of hydrogen and oxygen) on the sunlit side of the Moon, determining whether they change with time. Trailblazer would also peer into shadowed craters to map ice deposits, glimpses of which were observed on prior missions.

The mission proposal is led by Bethany Ehlmann, professor of planetary science at Caltech and research scientist at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA. “Our team is excited to move forward to map water on the Moon. The water cycle of airless bodies is one of the solar system’s most surprising occurrences and is important for the support of future human lunar exploration,” Ehlmann says.

The relatively tiny Trailblazer satellite, which would measure just 5 meters in length with its solar panels fully deployed, would spend a year orbiting the Moon at a height of 100 kilometers, scanning it with two key instruments: a shortwave imaging spectrometer built by JPL and a multispectral thermal imager built by the University of Oxford.

The spectrometer would image the surface in multiple wavelengths in the infrared, searching for the signature of water -- either in the form of ice or bound to minerals. Meanwhile, the thermal imager would map the temperature, physical properties, and composition of regions where the spectrometer detects water.

The end result would be a high-resolution map -- at 100 meters per pixel -- that charts the form, abundance, and distribution of water while also collecting information about the environments where that water exists. The mission’s leaders hope that such information could not only fill in the gaps of our understanding of the Moon but also chart a course for future human exploration.

The mission was proposed as part of NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) Program for low-budget missions that are capable of major planetary surveys. “We’re eager to lead the way in science and discovery using this new small-satellite NASA mission class. The opportunities are huge,” Ehlmann says.

The mission will now receive funding for up to one year followed by a NASA preliminary design review. At that time, NASA will determine when and if it will be selected for a flight. The satellite could launch within two to four years, Ehlmann says. Caltech would be responsible for managing the project and for the scientific leadership, with support from JPL. Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, would build the spacecraft.

Once launched, the spacecraft would be operated by teams from Caltech and neighboring Pasadena City College. The teams would include students who will be supported by experienced Caltech and JPL personnel. The project’s science team includes researchers from Caltech, JPL, the UK Space Agency, the University of Oxford, Pasadena City College, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Brown University, and Northern Arizona University.

// end //
#3 by gongora on 04 Aug, 2019 16:36
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1158047977581285377
Quote
Mercer said the SIMPLEx competition set a cost range of $15-55M, encouraging proposalx to come in below $55M. “They didn’t.” #smallsat
#4 by hattifnatter on 29 Feb, 2020 15:51
Does the latest NASA announcement about Psyche rocket

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-launch-services-contract-for-the-psyche-mission

mean that EscaPADE and Janus are confirmed?
#5 by vjkane on 12 Sep, 2020 14:02
Press release announcing that the Janus mission has passed its Key Decision Point-C milestone.

Two interesting tidbits: 1) the mission at <$55M will cost 5-6% of what the Psyche and Lucy Discovery missions will, 2) the Janus spacecraft will need to operate for over four years, which would be a large jump over the lifetime of the only two other interplanetary cubesats to date, the MARCO spacecraft.

Sept. 10, 2020
New SIMPLEx Mission to Send SmallSats on Longest Deep Space Journey to Date

A small satellite mission that will study the formation and evolutionary implications for small “rubble pile” asteroids has received NASA approval to proceed to the next phase of its development.

Janus twin spacecraft
Credits: Janus illustration - Lockheed Martin

On Sept. 3, the dual-spacecraft Janus project successfully passed the important Key Decision Point-C milestone. It’s the first concept study from the current round of NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx-2) program to do so.

Two other SIMPLEx-2 concepts, Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) and Lunar Trailblazer, are still in formulation. Lunar Trailblazer’s KDP-C is scheduled for this November, and EscaPADE’s is scheduled for April 2021.

Passing KDP-C means that the mission received agency-level approval for the Janus team to begin final design of hardware. The decision point also establishes the mission’s official schedule and budget. The mission will cost less than $55 million.

Janus’ twin spacecraft are designed to be small and agile, each one about the size of a carry-on suitcase. Shrinking the spacecraft brings an advantage, said Lockheed Martin’s Janus Program Manager Josh Wood. He explained that innovative technologies allow us to explore our solar system in new ways and address important science questions with smaller spacecraft.

A binary asteroid is a system of two asteroids orbiting their common center of mass. Janus will meet up with two pairs of binary asteroids —designated 1996 FG3 and 1991 VH—each presenting differing orbital patterns. For instance, the pair called 1991 VH, has its own satellite, or “moon,” that whips around its larger “primary” asteroid following an erratic path. The 1996 FG3 pair, on the other hand, has a very stable orbital state. A suite of cameras on the Janus small satellites (SmallSats) will carefully track these dynamics with unmatched detail and build an accurate model of the two different binary asteroid systems.

“Binary asteroids are one class of objects for which we don’t have high-resolution scientific data,” said Daniel Scheeres, Janus Principal Investigator at the University of Colorado. “Everything we have on them is based on ground observations, which don’t give you as much detail as being up close.”

Janus will contribute to NASA’s goal of understanding our solar system’s content, origin and evolution. The mission also will inform planetary defense efforts and help fill in knowledge gaps as NASA moves forward with its plans for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.

“Janus will deliver big science in a small package," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. "This SIMPLEx mission is the first such targeted science mission developed at reduced overall costs using new streamlined processes, while testing innovative technologies for use by future missions."

Using small spacecraft -- less than 400 pounds, or 180 kilograms in mass -- SIMPLEx selections will conduct stand-alone planetary science missions. Each will share their ride to space with either another NASA mission or a commercial launch opportunity.

After riding along with the launch of NASA’s Psyche mission in 2022, the Janus twins will first complete an orbit around the Sun, before heading back toward Earth for a gravity assisted sling-shot far into space and beyond the orbit of Mars.

The duo, named after the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and passages, will travel about four years to reach their destinations.

Janus is managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama as part of the Solar System Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The program conducts space science investigations in the Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, guided by NASA’s agency priorities and the Decadal Survey process of the National Academy of Sciences. Janus is led by the University of Colorado Boulder, where the PI is based, which will also undertake the scientific analysis for the mission. Lockheed Martin will manage, build and operate the spacecraft.

For information on NASA’s small satellite activities, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/smallsat-institute
#6 by vjkane on 18 Sep, 2020 14:35
SIMPLEx program is being suspended. Only general reasons are being given. It could be the costs of missions (Janus is "<$55M", or general budget pressures.

NASA SMD: Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) Opportunity Delayed

Status Report From: NASA Science Mission Directorate
Posted: Thursday, September 17, 2020

Dear Colleagues:

After careful consideration of the current circumstances, the next Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) Opportunity is delayed with no new release date available at this time. The AO had been tentatively scheduled for the third quarter of fiscal year 2021, but has been removed from the Planning List for SMD Solicitations posted at https://soma.larc.nasa.gov.

While NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD) remains committed to the goals of the SIMPLEx program, several factors require this delay. First, we have important existing commitments that are of high priority based on the Decadal Survey that we are working under. The inefficiencies related to COVID-19 only enhance the pressure on our budget. Second, we are still learning from this current round of selected SIMPLEx missions. Consistent with our previous comments on these issues, we want to incorporate lessons from these missions, including solicited feedback from the community, into our approaches before starting the process for the next AO. In particular, SMD needs to take stock of the procedures for selecting, managing, and matching rideshare missions to primary missions so that we maximize the opportunity for rideshare mission success. This delay will allow NASA to communicate with various stakeholders to ensure alignment going forward.

Finally, PSD has asked the Decadal Survey for guidance on the future of the SIMPLEx Program balanced with other priorities.

In closing, I want to assure you that PSD understands that responding to an AO requires tremendous work by the proposers that begins well in advance of the AO’s release. We will make every effort to announce the next SIMPLEx opportunity well in advance of the AO’s ultimate release.

Sincerely,

Lori S. Glaze, Ph.D.

Director, Planetary Science Division NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
#7 by Sknowball on 20 Sep, 2020 15:49
Quote from: hattifnatter on 29 Feb, 2020 15:51
Does the latest NASA announcement about Psyche rocket

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-launch-services-contract-for-the-psyche-mission

mean that EscaPADE and Janus are confirmed?

EscaPADE has been bumped from Psyche launch per SpaceNews (https://spacenews.com/mars-smallsat-mission-bumped-from-launch/), given reason is a change in the trajectory for Psyche as the result of manifesting on Falcon Heavy rather than Falcon FT.

Quote
NASA spokesperson Karen Fox said Sept. 17 that a switch in launch vehicles led to the decision to take EscaPADE off the mission. “Psyche was originally planned to launch on a Falcon 9 Full Thrust, but it was ultimately determined that the performance of a Falcon Heavy was needed for Psyche to get to the required orbit,” she said.

The switch to the Falcon Heavy, she said, allowed Psyche to optimize its trajectory needed to arrive at its destination. “This trajectory is not optimal for a mission with the goal of Mars capture and orbit, as EscaPADE is required to do, and would have required EscaPADE into an extended cruise phase to get into its correct orbit,” Fox said.
#8 by Blackstar on 20 Sep, 2020 17:44
Quote from: vjkane on 18 Sep, 2020 14:35
SIMPLEx program is being suspended. Only general reasons are being given. It could be the costs of missions (Janus is "<$55M", or general budget pressures.

I suspect it is a combination of several things:

-EscaPADE got bumped
-they're running into problems finding compatible missions to ride along with

But I'm guessing. I don't know.

Somebody informed me that the requirement for these missions is that they eject after the primary payload separates. That means that they don't get to tag along for the ride, but pretty much have to be going in the direction of flight. That also means they need their own propulsion stage for braking, if they're going to do that. That reduces the mission options a lot.

What we're seeing with this program is not that different than what we've seen for decades now with other co-manifested payloads. It comes down to a basic problem of compatibility. The secondary payload has to wait for the primary payload. Arianespace faced something similar when they would put two comsats on top of an Ariane 5 (one spacecraft would have to wait around until the other one was finished and ready for launch). We also saw this with the early days of cubesats, where some cubesats got stuck on the ground for a long time waiting for an available launch. It gets even tougher when considering planetary missions, because available launches are rare--if you are going to Mars and nobody else is going to Mars that can carry you, then you will wait until the next launch window.

The alternative is a dedicated launch, which means that NASA could be buying an expensive launch for an inexpensive payload.

Smallsats for planetary missions have been proposed for a long time. I've seen proposals for them going back to the 1980s and NASA GasCan missions, as well as early 1990s proposals for Pegasus-launched missions. The options are just really constrained.
#9 by TrevorMonty on 20 Sep, 2020 18:45
EscaPADE at <90kg each should be able use dedicated small LV. May need to wait year or two for 1000kg class LV.

Electron with Photon EDS maybe able to send one to Mars at approx.$10M.
#10 by su27k on 26 Jan, 2023 04:33
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1618329995411070987

Quote
A couple notes from a presentation by Dan Scheeres on Janus at SBAG: could not remain on Psyche for the 2023 launch opportunity because trajectory would have taken it much further into main belt, beyond its operating constraints.

He says they are looking at potential mission options, including during a flyby of Apophis before that asteroid's close approach to Earth in 2029. Some concerns about lifetime of its propulsion system, but there are options that fit. Looking into rideshare opportunities.

Janus considering alternative missions after losing original ride

Quote from: SpaceNews
A NASA asteroid smallsat mission that lost its original ride to space is considering alternative missions while also accommodating performance issues with its propulsion system.

Janus was originally designed to fly two smallsats that would then fly by separate binary asteroid missions. The mission, part of a NASA planetary smallsat program called Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration, or SIMPLEx, was set to launch as a secondary payload on the Falcon Heavy launch of Psyche in 2022.

However, the delay of Psyche’s launch to October 2023 meant that Janus could not fly its original trajectory to reach its original targets or others of scientific interest. NASA announced Nov. 18 that it had removed Janus from the Psyche launch to allow the mission to explore possible alternative missions.
#11 by Blackstar on 08 Feb, 2023 20:42
Not a SIMPLEx mission, but planetary cubesat. Dunno where the updates on Flashlight go:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/smallsatellites/2023/02/08/nasa-eyes-new-lunar-cubesat-orbit-propulsion-challenges-continue/?fbclid=IwAR1FRHNtVvglXwgO8R2SkONMO_-Ko4iaaoxtMfMZf1SkI82OUgzfNiu0lic

NASA Eyes New Lunar CubeSat Orbit, Propulsion Challenges Continue

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight CubeSat launched on Dec. 11, 2022, to demonstrate several new technologies with a stretch science goal of detecting surface ice at the Moon’s South Pole. Shortly into Lunar Flashlight’s journey, the mission operations team discovered three of its four thrusters were underperforming.

Among the steps taken to analyze the issue and find possible solutions, the mission performed tests to determine whether the one fully functional thruster could provide adequate thrust to guide the spacecraft into its planned orbit. To that end, team members at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and Georgia Tech devised a creative maneuvering technique using one thruster: The spacecraft was spun at a rate of 6 degrees per second, or one revolution per minute, around its directed axis. Then the thruster was fired while commanding the spacecraft to remain pointed in the right direction. There was potential after 20 days, these mini-trajectory correction maneuvers would guide Lunar Flashlight to its planned near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon.

The team successfully completed quite a few 10-minute sequences on the single thruster, but soon after, that thruster also experienced a rapid loss in performance, and it became clear that the thrust being delivered was not enough to make it to the planned orbit.

The NASA JPL and Georgia Tech team is developing a new plan to get to the Moon. Because achieving an optimal near-rectilinear halo orbit appears unlikely, the Lunar Flashlight team decided to attempt lunar flybys using any remaining thrust the propulsion system can deliver. This new attempt is designed to get the CubeSat into high Earth orbit, which includes periodic flybys of the lunar South Pole once a month to collect data. The team plans to begin maneuvers on Thursday, and, if successful, the expected first science pass will now be in June.

While Lunar Flashlight faces significant challenges in its goal of getting to the Moon, testing its new propulsion system in space fulfills one of the mission’s objectives and will support future technology development. The mission’s miniaturized propulsion system is a technology demonstration that has never been flown in space before. Technology demonstrations are high-risk, high-reward endeavors intended to push the frontiers of space technology. The lessons learned from these challenges will help to inform future missions that further advance this technology.

The rest of the CubeSat’s onboard systems are fully functional, and the mission recently successfully tested its four-laser reflectometer. This mini-instrument is the first of its kind and is designed and calibrated to seek out surface ice inside the permanently shadowed craters at the Moon’s South Pole.

Lunar Flashlight is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
#12 by AnalogMan on 08 Feb, 2023 23:00
We have an old thread on Lunar Flashlight that became active again following launch:

Lunar Flashlight: a bright idea?
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35837.0

(Its not in the most obvious of places to look!)
#13 by Blackstar on 09 Feb, 2023 00:58
Yeah, that's not a very obvious place. There probably should just be a planetary cubesats thread that includes all of this stuff, because there's so little traffic it's not going to make sense to hide it.

Anyway, the track record for planetary cubesats so far is pretty poor.
#14 by zubenelgenubi on 09 Feb, 2023 01:31
Moderator:
I moved Lunar Flashlight thread from HSF Moon Missions to Space Science Coverage.