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2022 Planetary Decadal Survey by vjkane on 20 Jul, 2020 14:45
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The next planetary Decadal Survey is ramping up, and it seems time for it to have it's own thread.
This survey is mandated by Congress to provide prioritization of missions, and supporting ground efforts such as technology development, for new missions in the decade starting 2023. At the moment, preparatory efforts are underway such as the study of 10 mission concepts chosen competitively and the writing of white papers that serve as community input.
In the last Survey, the effort was organized into a steering committee and several destination committees (Mars, Venus, outer planets, etc). I've seen talk that this one might have more of an emphasis on themes, but I haven't seen any announcements. The panels will examine the key scientific questions and mission options to examine them. Their reports will then be used by the steering committee to set overall priorities.
In the past, the survey grandfathers in all missions already in development, and -- from memory -- these are likely to be Europa Clipper, Dragonfly, whichever mission(s) are selected in the current Discovery competition, and Mars sample return. During the period of the Survey's activities, the next New Frontiers mission competition will be in progress.
My guess is that the next Survey will decide to continue with the current mix of mission classes: SIMPLEx small sats (currently <$55M), Discovery ($700-800M), New Frontiers ($1-1.5B), and Flagship missions. Having Mars sample return development occurring during the next decade likely will put a crimp on the ambitions affordable for other targets.
I see a few key decisions that the next Survey will need to make:
1) What are the priority science questions for the next decade? This will favor some missions and destinations.
2) What should be the recommended balance in spending among the various classes of missions?
3) What Flagship mission should follow Mars sample return. I predict that the tough discussions will be between an ice giant mission and a second (following Clipper) dedicated ocean mission, perhaps to Enceladus. (There are also lots of ideas for Flagship missions to other destinations, too.) There will be about a four year window from 2030 to 2034 for using Jupiter gravity assists to get to either ice giant.)
4) How should the New Frontiers be structued? Currently, there is a candidate mission list selected by each Decadal Survey (although NASA can and has modified the list). There are calls to open this competition up to proposals to any destination. If it isn't opened up, what are the handful of favored candidate missions (which will reflect the key science themes)?
5) If the planetary science budget shrinks during the decade, what parts of the program should be prioritized?
Here are some good links:
Survey homepage - https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/planetary-science-and-astrobiology-decadal-survey-2023-2032
Spreadsheet with links to published white papers (>300 as I write this) - https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/planetary-science-and-astrobiology-decadal-survey-2023-2032
Status reports for the competitively selected mission studies - https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/pmcs2020/format/
[zubenelgenubi: Previous Planetary Science Decadal Survey thread]
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#1 by Eric Hedman on 20 Jul, 2020 22:05
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I would like to see them look into if a CLPS like approach might work for the inner solar system from Venus to the asteroid belt. If commercial standardized space craft could make more frequent trip, Investigators maybe could just focus on the instrument suite for these trips; it might be a way to do more science with less cost.
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#2 by whitelancer64 on 20 Jul, 2020 22:51
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I would like to see them look into if a CLPS like approach might work for the inner solar system from Venus to the asteroid belt. If commercial standardized space craft could make more frequent trip, Investigators maybe could just focus on the instrument suite for these trips; it might be a way to do more science with less cost.
The reason CLPS was possible is there are multiple US companies that are working on small-medium lunar landers. That allows NASA to spread out risk by working with many providers.
There aren't multiple companies working on sending orbiters to Venus or probes to the asteroid belts, so that model won't work. -
#3 by vjkane on 21 Jul, 2020 02:43
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The reason CLPS was possible is there are multiple US companies that are working on small-medium lunar landers. That allows NASA to spread out risk by working with many providers.
I believe there are zero companies working on sending orbiters to Venus or probes to the asteroid belts.
There aren't multiple companies working on sending orbiters to Venus or probes to the asteroid belts, so that model won't work.
Commercial solutions work when there are a number potential customers. Planetary missions beyond the surface of the moon all have many specialized constraints. There have been many proposals to create standardized buses. The only ones I can think of are the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter > MAVEN and Mars Polar Orbiter > Phoenix > InSight.
Imagine that a company builds a standard spacecraft for Venus. The last US mission to Venus was in the early 1990s. Not a good business model.
The Mars community has suggested a series of smallsats for Mars. Perhaps, if the Decadal Survey & NASA & the Office of Budget and Management & Congress are all kind, there might be 2-3 in a decade. Would you bet your business on that chain of events? -
#4 by vjkane on 21 Jul, 2020 02:59
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There have been 350 white papers submitted to the new Decadal Survey. The deadline for science and general white papers was July 15; mission specific white papers are due by August 15.
I did a couple of charts on the self reported categories for the current white papers; some to many may have claimed multiple targets or science themes.
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#5 by Eric Hedman on 21 Jul, 2020 04:32
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I believe there were zero commercial ventures that landed anything on the Moon prior to the CLPS program.The reason CLPS was possible is there are multiple US companies that are working on small-medium lunar landers. That allows NASA to spread out risk by working with many providers.
I believe there are zero companies working on sending orbiters to Venus or probes to the asteroid belts.
There aren't multiple companies working on sending orbiters to Venus or probes to the asteroid belts, so that model won't work.
Commercial solutions work when there are a number potential customers. Planetary missions beyond the surface of the moon all have many specialized constraints. There have been any proposals to create standardized buses. The only ones I can think of are the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter > MAVEN and Mars Polar Orbiter > Phoenix > InSight.
Imagine that a company builds a standard spacecraft for Venus. The last US mission to Venus was in the early 1990s. Not a good business model.
The Mars community has suggested a series of smallsats for Mars. Perhaps, if the Decadal Survey & NASA & the Office of Budget and Management & Congress are all kind, there might be 2-3 in a decade. Would you bet your business on that chain of events?
The PPE for the Lunar Gateway is based on a commercial bus. If a similar type of approach built a standard bus with solar electric propulsion to fly at regularly within the inner solar system, I don't see why per mission costs wouldn't come down and the number of opportunities increased. Some standardized instruments off the shelf could reduce R&D costs. I could see a business case for offering a standard bus for lower cost more frequent missions. You might find new customers beyond NASA. Just look a Japan launching a mission to Mars orbit for the UAE. It might open up these kinds of missions for more international collaboration if the costs come down. -
#6 by whitelancer64 on 21 Jul, 2020 14:41
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The reason CLPS was possible is there are multiple US companies that are working on small-medium lunar landers. That allows NASA to spread out risk by working with many providers.
I believe there are zero companies working on sending orbiters to Venus or probes to the asteroid belts.
There aren't multiple companies working on sending orbiters to Venus or probes to the asteroid belts, so that model won't work.
Commercial solutions work when there are a number potential customers. Planetary missions beyond the surface of the moon all have many specialized constraints. There have been any proposals to create standardized buses. The only ones I can think of are the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter > MAVEN and Mars Polar Orbiter > Phoenix > InSight.
Imagine that a company builds a standard spacecraft for Venus. The last US mission to Venus was in the early 1990s. Not a good business model.
The Mars community has suggested a series of smallsats for Mars. Perhaps, if the Decadal Survey & NASA & the Office of Budget and Management & Congress are all kind, there might be 2-3 in a decade. Would you bet your business on that chain of events?
I presume you meant to say "there have been many."
Which is indeed the case. NASA tried to make a "Modular Common Spacecraft Bus" for space probes, designed particularly for small lunar missions, but it was ony ever used on the LADEE mission and in a couple of proposals that were not selected for flight.
Part of the issue is that probes vary tremendously in design, depending on their purpose, and mandating the use of only one bus is a big constraint on the design and layout of the probe.
That said, there are several other examples where probes in the same family used the same bus. The Mariner series of probes, for example. And NASA does use commercially available satellite buses where they are able to, especially for Earth observing satellites. Examples: ICON uses Northrop Grumman's LEOStar-2 satellite bus, and the Landsat-9 and JPSS-2 spacecraft, currently being built, use the larger LEOStar-3 bus. -
#7 by vjkane on 21 Jul, 2020 16:35
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I believe there were zero commercial ventures that landed anything on the Moon prior to the CLPS program.
One of the reasons that countries pay for planetary exploration is to support their own industries. Japan, for example, doesn't want to ship a few $100M to Europe or the US to supply an interplanetary spacecraft.
The PPE for the Lunar Gateway is based on a commercial bus. If a similar type of approach built a standard bus with solar electric propulsion to fly at regularly within the inner solar system, I don't see why per mission costs wouldn't come down and the number of opportunities increased. Some standardized instruments off the shelf could reduce R&D costs. I could see a business case for offering a standard bus for lower cost more frequent missions. You might find new customers beyond NASA. Just look a Japan launching a mission to Mars orbit for the UAE. It might open up these kinds of missions for more international collaboration if the costs come down.
UAE is, so far, unique in that it doesn't have a sufficiently capable home space industry and is using this mission in part to try to kick start one. -
#8 by vjkane on 21 Jul, 2020 16:38
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That said, there are several other examples where probes in the same family used the same bus. The Mariner series of probes, for example. And NASA does use commercially available satellite buses where they are able to, especially for Earth observing satellites. Examples: ICON uses Northrop Grumman's LEOStar-2 satellite bus, and the Landsat-9 and JPSS-2 spacecraft, currently being built, use the larger LEOStar-3 bus.
Psyche is an example, and the only one I know if, that uses a commercial satellite bus for an interplanetary mission. I don't haven't heard that any of the current Discovery missions plan to use a commercial bus. -
#9 by ccdengr on 21 Jul, 2020 17:00
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Psyche is an example, and the only one I know if, that uses a commercial satellite bus for an interplanetary mission.
That overstates the situation considerably. The Psyche "SEP Chassis" is adapted from a commercial bus, it's not like it's build-to-print or anything. https://blog.maxar.com/space-infrastructure/2020/psyche-five-questions-with-maxars-program-management
There's always a lot of heritage with previous designs but the "standard bus" concept has been tried many times and so far never succeeded. At low flight rates it simply makes little sense.
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#10 by zubenelgenubi on 21 Jul, 2020 18:37
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There's always a lot of heritage with previous designs but the "standard bus" concept has been tried many times and so far never succeeded. At low flight rates it simply makes little sense.
See also Mariner Mark II. Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby > Cassini/Huygens > ? -
#11 by vjkane on 21 Jul, 2020 18:40
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The plan was to have a line of missions based on the Mariner Mark II bus. Only Cassini, in a much modified form as I recall, ever flew.There's always a lot of heritage with previous designs but the "standard bus" concept has been tried many times and so far never succeeded. At low flight rates it simply makes little sense.
See also Mariner Mark II. Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby > Cassini/Huygens > ? -
#12 by freddo411 on 21 Jul, 2020 19:01
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Psyche is an example, and the only one I know if, that uses a commercial satellite bus for an interplanetary mission.
That overstates the situation considerably. The Psyche "SEP Chassis" is adapted from a commercial bus, it's not like it's build-to-print or anything. https://blog.maxar.com/space-infrastructure/2020/psyche-five-questions-with-maxars-program-management
There's always a lot of heritage with previous designs but the "standard bus" concept has been tried many times and so far never succeeded. At low flight rates it simply makes little sense.
Define "tried many times". I have heard it discussed a lot, but aside from the Soviet Veneras and the Ranger probes from the 1960s, I don't think anyone say that we've tried a common design with many instances in any meaningful way.
It's simply not possible to declare success or failure on a concept that hasn't really been tried.
I agree that the very, very low flight rate makes it almost impossible to standardize designs. Is that not part of the problem? I submit that a higher flight rate of missions can be done with a lower cost per mission .... We can have lower or equal total costs for planetary exploration with many more modest missions. -
#13 by zubenelgenubi on 21 Jul, 2020 19:15
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I submit that a higher flight rate of missions can be done with a lower cost per mission .... We can have lower or equal total costs for planetary exploration with many more modest missions.
Thus, "Explorer" > Discovery > New Frontiers > Flagship
If a "modest" mission does not answer one or more of the "burning" questions, then why fly it?
"Burning" being determined by the scientists communally.
Thus, decadal surveys, and mid-decadal reviews.
As Alan Thicke wrote and sang: "It takes Diff'rent Strokes to move the world!"
That's what I'm talking about, Willis.
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#14 by Kryten on 21 Jul, 2020 19:24
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The idea of using buses intended for communications sats for planetary work has had a good amount of recent application outside of the US; Chang'e 1/2/5-T1 used the DFH-3A bus, and Chandrayaan-1 and the -2 orbiter were based on standard ISRO buses. Nothing farther out than the moon though.
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#15 by ccdengr on 21 Jul, 2020 20:10
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Define "tried many times". I have heard it discussed a lot, but aside from the Soviet Veneras and the Ranger probes from the 1960s, I don't think anyone say that we've tried a common design with many instances in any meaningful way.
Mars Observer was supposed to be the first of several common-bus missions. Mariner Mark II was mentioned; that was a bit of a joke because CRAF and Cassini had quite dissimilar requirements to begin with and then CRAF was cancelled. MCO and Mars Odyssey were very similar but not identical, MRO and Juno were evolutions from there, etc.
At the flight rates we have, and with competed instrument suites and very different science goals and mission profiles, a standardized bus and instrument complement makes no sense IMHO. At a much higher flight rate and for similar science goals I'm sure it would make more sense. As it is, the reuse is at the box and subsystem level, not at the top-assembly level. I don't think many people appreciate how hand-built and unique most planetary spacecraft are.
At any rate, this is off-topic for the Decadal Survey since that is about goals, not implementation. -
#16 by Don2 on 23 Jul, 2020 03:54
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I think they should include the costs of operations and launch in New Frontiers and Discovery proposals. The development of Falcon Heavy is going to open up new opportunities for outer solar system exploration. They are claiming a payload to Pluto of 3.5 tons. However, proposals that need either a Falcon Heavy or a Vulcan Heavy should spend less on other parts of the project to offset the additional launch cost. So proposals should be charged a notional cost of $200 million for a Falcon Heavy, $100 million for a Falcon 9, or $0 if they get a free launch from the Europeans. What NASA actually pays for the launch will depend on what kind of deal the agency could get from the rocket industry.
Proposals need to be charged operations costs in order to provide incentives to reduce those costs. The Habex telescope proposal mentioned using a celestial navigation system to reduce costs. This involved using some additional star trackers to track asteroids. Another idea to make navigation simpler is to use an onboard atomic clock. Both ideas involve spending more on the spacecraft upfront in order to reduce operations costs down the road. Proposals won't do that as long as operations costs are free money.
For New Frontiers the list of destinations should be changed. Anything beyond the orbit of Saturn should be considered for a flyby unless that target has been selected for a Flagship orbiter. Flybys of Neptune or Uranus should drop an atmospheric probe. There is a long list of large Kuiper Belt objects which would be great destinations and the availability of new rockets should reduce the time to reach them.
At Saturn I think either an Enceladus or a Titan focused mission should be considered. Also worth considering would be a Saturn system mission covering multiple objectives like an atmosphere probe, Enceladus plume investigation, Titan surface imaging and Dragonfly comms relay.
Jupiter missions should be off the table until we get data back from Juice and Clipper.
Small bodies are well covered by Discovery class missions, but comet sample return is a long standing ask and should be included. Ceres sample return also looks promising.
For the moon I think there are three interesting objectives. One is a nuclear powered rover that could explore the ice deposits in the shadowed craters. The second is a long range rover. The third is a geochronology payload which could improve the understanding of the rate of impacts and help to make ages estimated from crater counting more reliable. It would be nice to merge a couple of these objectives into a single mission. Lunar rover costs are going to be hard to estimate. The moon is very different from Mars. Rover costs may be a lot less.
If a Venus radar is selected by either Discovery or the Europeans then Venus should be off the table. If not, then they should look at merging VERITAS and DAVINCI into a single New Frontiers proposal.
Neither Lunar sample return nor the Lunar geophysical network has won previous competitions. I think they should be taken off the New Frontiers list and merged into the CLPS program instead. To improve lander designs, engineers need the opportunity for a series of flights, with opportunities to improve the lander design after each mission. Most technological progress comes from incremental improvements of existing designs. The need for a series of landings is very compatible with deploying a geophysical network mission. However, NASA would need to pick a single lander provider for this to work. Affordable sample return would be a long term challenge for the lander builders. That would be compatible with the CLPS objective of advancing lunar landing capabilities.
When it comes to Flagships the Ice Giants community has made an extremely compelling case for a Uranus orbiter and probe. The 2011 concept study had a cost of a little under $2 billion and is still a very sound proposal for the next Flagship. -
#17 by spacetraveler on 23 Jul, 2020 21:00
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When it comes to Flagships the Ice Giants community has made an extremely compelling case for a Uranus orbiter and probe. The 2011 concept study had a cost of a little under $2 billion and is still a very sound proposal for the next Flagship.
I like the Uranus orbiter concept. Having sent orbiters to both Jupiter and Saturn, I think Uranus is the next logical target for an orbiter mission. Furthermore, both the cost and transit time of a Uranus orbiter mission should be notably less than they would be for Neptune, though some would consider Neptune the more scientifically compelling mission, especially if it incorporated a Triton probe or lander (though that would add cost). -
#18 by whitelancer64 on 23 Jul, 2020 21:30
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I think they should include the costs of operations and launch in New Frontiers and Discovery proposals.
*snip*
Are you saying the launch vehicle should be selected at the time of the mission is awarded to a proposal? -
#19 by vjkane on 23 Jul, 2020 23:23
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I think they should include the costs of operations and launch in New Frontiers and Discovery proposals. The development of Falcon Heavy is going to open up new opportunities for outer solar system exploration. They are claiming a payload to Pluto of 3.5 tons. However, proposals that need either a Falcon Heavy or a Vulcan Heavy should spend less on other parts of the project to offset the additional launch cost. So proposals should be charged a notional cost of $200 million for a Falcon Heavy, $100 million for a Falcon 9, or $0 if they get a free launch from the Europeans. What NASA actually pays for the launch will depend on what kind of deal the agency could get from the rocket industry.
NASA dropped launch costs from the PI budget because PIs have no control over how much launch vendors charge. I suspect that many think that launch cost is approximately proportional to target distance, but since missions that travel past Mars use Venus/Earth/Mars gravity assists, the energy needed for launch is to the first gravity assist target.
Operations costs were excluded from PI costs because including them effectively excludes missions that must spend years in transit. How could, for example, Trident with its ~13 year flight time compete with a Venus mission with a 6 month flight time?
You may believe that the outer solar system is less worthy of study, and you have the right to that opinion.
And NASA absolutely looks at total mission costs when deciding on the missions to select, and you can be sure that PIs are aware of these costs knowing that. It simply isn't in the budget category that NASA asks them to manage.Proposals need to be charged operations costs in order to provide incentives to reduce those costs. The Habex telescope proposal mentioned using a celestial navigation system to reduce costs. This involved using some additional star trackers to track asteroids. Another idea to make navigation simpler is to use an onboard atomic clock. Both ideas involve spending more on the spacecraft upfront in order to reduce operations costs down the road. Proposals won't do that as long as operations costs are free money.
See note aboveFor New Frontiers the list of destinations should be changed. Anything beyond the orbit of Saturn should be considered for a flyby unless that target has been selected for a Flagship orbiter. Flybys of Neptune or Uranus should drop an atmospheric probe. There is a long list of large Kuiper Belt objects which would be great destinations and the availability of new rockets should reduce the time to reach them.
The furthest target for a New Frontiers mission is currently a Saturn atmospheric probe. Both JPL and APL believe they have viable concepts for New Frontiers Uranus orbiters.Jupiter missions should be off the table until we get data back from Juice and Clipper.
So drop Io from the New Frontiers list and prohibit it from Discovery proposals? Both JUICE and Clipper will only do remote studies of Io that cannot answer the key questions identified for this world by the previous Decadal Survery.When it comes to Flagships the Ice Giants community has made an extremely compelling case for a Uranus orbiter and probe. The 2011 concept study had a cost of a little under $2 billion and is still a very sound proposal for the next Flagship.
See note above on new Uranus orbiter concepts. Including an atmospheric probe would bust the New Frontiers PI cost cap unless it were contributed by another space agency.
