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#20
by
Blackstar
on 11 Sep, 2022 23:39
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Squyres very specifically said they are not similar - so apparently not much heritage despite superficial similarities (such as touch and retreat sampling using a collector on a long boom. But as Blackstar said in another reply, the proposal was judged competitive.
I believe that Squyres is now retired, but another team member might lead a reproposal or one that draws from the previous proposal.
Different sampling mechanism is a big deal. However, Squyres' proposal would have used a Japanese reentry vehicle similar to that proven for Hayabusa. Also, Squyres is with Blue Origin, but I haven't heard anything about what he does there. There are other people at Cornell--where he used to be--who could pick up the original proposal.
I'm very wary of the term "heritage equipment." Lots of people claim it in proposals, but they often discover that when it is time to build the spacecraft, they cannot use an identical version of equipment flown on another spacecraft. That can happen for lots of reasons, including a different environment, requirements creep, or even changing vendors (like the original manufacturer no longer exists).
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#21
by
tbellman
on 12 Sep, 2022 09:38
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* Add a kickstage such as a Star 48 to improve TLI performance numbers so as to allow all 4 landers + orbiter to launch on 1 Falcon Heavy. The Europa Clipper mission is going to use a Star 48 with a Falcon Heavy, so the thought isn't completely crazy.
(My bolding.)
No, it is not. That alternative was discarded quite some time ago. Europa Clipper will not use a kick stage, just a "plain" Falcon Heavy.
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#22
by
skizzo
on 12 Sep, 2022 10:11
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Since its unlike the Enceladus probe and lander flagship mission is unlikely to happen, hopefully the Enceladus NF mission goes ahead
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#23
by
Blackstar
on 19 Sep, 2022 13:32
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A topic that has come up a few times with regards to NF 5, the South Pole Aitken Basin Sample Return mission, the lunar geophysical network mission, and CLPS, is getting lunar landers to survive the lunar night. This is not an impossible technical problem. After all, the Soviets did it with Lunokhod. The real issue is doing it relatively inexpensively and at low mass. Inexpensively almost certainly means doing it without a radioactive heating source. The mass issue is a tougher one. Presumably, you could pack a lander with batteries and run a low level heater during the nighttime. But that would be heavy and wasteful. Also, you really want to be able to operate at least some instruments during the nighttime--having a seismic sensor that only works during the day is not ideal.
The CLPS companies know about all this, and presumably they have ideas about how to address it. However, they are also all focused on getting their first lander to work, so they probably are not devoting many resources to solving problems farther down the road. (Many of these companies don't have much in the way of personnel or other resources, so they have to say very focused on the near-term.)
The NASA science community has sponsored a series of workshops on the subject of surviving the lunar night. There is one in December.
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#24
by
MRJC
on 23 Sep, 2022 16:27
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#25
by
MRJC
on 23 Sep, 2022 17:31
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#26
by
MRJC
on 17 Oct, 2022 10:52
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#27
by
vjkane
on 17 Oct, 2022 15:19
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#28
by
deadman1204
on 17 Oct, 2022 15:26
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#29
by
redliox
on 17 Oct, 2022 23:26
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I wouldn't mind seeing the Neptune Surveyor fly, although I favored a flyby with probe versus just an orbiter. I don't know if whatever committee that drives NF will change it's mind, plus I'd hate to write off the potential for either some Farside Lunar missions or maybe the Venus balloon ideas.
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#30
by
vjkane
on 17 Oct, 2022 23:42
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I wouldn't mind seeing the Neptune Surveyor fly, although I favored a flyby with probe versus just an orbiter. I don't know if whatever committee that drives NF will change it's mind, plus I'd hate to write off the potential for either some Farside Lunar missions or maybe the Venus balloon ideas.
Only a flyby to Neptune could be afforded on a New Frontiers budget.
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#31
by
Blackstar
on 18 Oct, 2022 00:46
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It mentions that its powered by "next-gen RTGs". Do these exist yet, or are they still in development?
There is a lot of wishful thinking behind this push. And chutzpah. And wishful thinking.
Take for instance this text:
"To be clear, we are not advocating for revision of the New Frontiers 5 target list via a lengthy consultation with the Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences, as associated delays would be to the detriment of the community and ultimately self-defeating."
CAPS is specifically tasked with interpreting the decadal survey. So what they are saying is that they don't want the organization that is supposed to review these kinds of things review this one.
Update: I'm trying to think of an analogy to what they are asking for and I can't really come up with a good one. But think of it like somebody who gets arrested for drunken driving and then asking that instead of having to appear in court, they be allowed to have their mother decide on their punishment. That's not how things work.
And that's only one problem with what is wrong here. There are procedures that have been established to determine how NASA selects planetary missions. CAPS is just part of that, but the decadal survey is a bigger part. And these people are essentially saying that because they don't like the outcome of the process, they want special consideration. Well, so does the Venus community, and the Mars community, and the asteroids community, and the giant planets community. It's just that those communities play by the rules and the ocean worlds community is a bunch of whiny babies that doesn't like the rules.
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#32
by
vjkane
on 05 Nov, 2022 07:51
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There is, I think, an interesting implication to the evaluation of the problems with the Psyche mission and JPL (see other threads for background) on the next NF competition.
JPL may not have the bandwidth to take on another mission before around 2030. NASA has basically instructed JPL to phase development on the planetary missions in its portfolio: complete Psyche (launch 2023), complete MSR (target launch 2028), complete VERITAS (launch no earlier than 2031). The message in the evaluation report is that JPL has too much on its plate, and the only solution was to move the bulk of the VERITAS development to after the planned MSR launch date.
This may mean that JPL effectively cannot propose a mission for the NF5 competition. The evaluation of any proposal includes the capacity to implement the proposed mission.
I would normally expect JPL to propose at least one and probably two missions for an NF competition. If JPL effectively can't propose missions, then we may have a much smaller field of proposals. Certainly John Hopkins APL will propose as may other NASA centers.
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#33
by
Kesarion
on 05 Nov, 2022 11:58
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This may mean that JPL effectively cannot propose a mission for the NF5 competition. The evaluation of any proposal includes the capacity to implement the proposed mission.
I would normally expect JPL to propose at least one and probably two missions for an NF competition. If JPL effectively can't propose missions, then we may have a much smaller field of proposals. Certainly John Hopkins APL will propose as may other NASA centers.
So this means that MoonRise (Aitken basin sample return), SPRITE (Saturn probe) and ELF (Enceladus flybys mission) are unlikely to be proposed or selected. This increases the chance that the Io Observer will be picked which the mission I'm personally rooting for.
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#34
by
Zed_Noir
on 05 Nov, 2022 14:12
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This may mean that JPL effectively cannot propose a mission for the NF5 competition. The evaluation of any proposal includes the capacity to implement the proposed mission.
I would normally expect JPL to propose at least one and probably two missions for an NF competition. If JPL effectively can't propose missions, then we may have a much smaller field of proposals. Certainly John Hopkins APL will propose as may other NASA centers.
So this means that MoonRise (Aitken basin sample return), SPRITE (Saturn probe) and ELF (Enceladus flybys mission) are unlikely to be proposed or selected. This increases the chance that the Io Observer will be picked which the mission I'm personally rooting for.
Think Lunar missions is a bit more likely than the outer system and comet missions for NF5. Since there might resources available to be tapped from the Artemis and CLPS programs that isn't JPL or APL.
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#35
by
Blackstar
on 05 Nov, 2022 15:46
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Think Lunar missions is a bit more likely than the outer system and comet missions for NF5. Since there might resources available to be tapped from the Artemis and CLPS programs that isn't JPL or APL.
In order to propose a mission, you really need an institutional sponsor that will pay the money to put together the proposal. (My guess is that it's a few million dollars.) And you need to be able to demonstrate that you can actually carry out that mission with confidence. So you need to point to an experienced team and hardware manufacturers and so on.
JPL in the past funded teams for each of the NF candidates. So if there were 5 candidate missions, they funded 5 teams. I don't know about APL, but they have less walking around money to fund these things--my WAG is that APL funded half as many as JPL.
As for Artemis and CLPS, I don't think they're going to be relevant. They have not really built or proven anything yet. And the CLPS teams for the most part are inexperienced and resource-thin. They are very focused on getting their first landers off the ground, and I doubt that they can loan any of their engineers to work on NF proposals. They just don't have them to spare.
Keep in mind that JPL is an 800-pound gorilla. They have a lot of money and a lot of people and a lot of experience. They also have an institution that wants to take on these things and wants to win. Their problem now is that they have too much on their plate. That's actually been a problem with them for a number of years. Before the pandemic I visited there and my friend noted that she was shocked that we found a parking space, because quite often the parking lots (not that big, actually) were filled early, and people had to park down the street and walk up. They were flooded with work and people and it was straining their capabilities. Obviously it has now bitten them in the butt.
In contrast, other potential NF sponsors don't have the same assets that JPL does. Lockheed Martin will fund some proposals, because LM has a culture that wants to win. They don't make much profit on planetary missions, but they value them for other reasons. I know somebody who worked at Boeing and he tried for several years to get Boeing into bidding on planetary missions and they just didn't care. They couldn't see the point of trying to win one of the competitions. That's why you don't see Boeing spacecraft landing on Mars or the Moon, or really flying anywhere beyond LEO.
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#36
by
Don2
on 06 Nov, 2022 17:52
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Given the shortage of resources, I wonder if they should delay the NF5 competition. I'm a little concerned that Mars Sample Return and Dragonfly are the two most ambitious planetary science missions ever attempted and that resources could run out if they run into trouble. There is also Europa Clipper, another big mission. And Psyche, Veritas, Davinci and NEO Surveyor. There is also the Roman telescope and all the Earth science missions.
If the competition goes ahead I expect a comet sample return mission based on the CAESAR proposal will run again. The previous proposal was managed by Goddard and built by Northrop Grumman. It was the runner up in the last competition, so I expect it will be a strong competitor.
The Japanese Hayabusa mission returned material that was the product of a low temperature hydrothermal system. It was similar to the Orgueil meteorite, which is among the most primitive solar system materials ever studied. The precursor to those materials is thought to be the icy materials found in comets. None of that icy material has ever been collected and studied. It is hoped that that material would give insights into the early solar system and perhaps the conditions around dying stars that made the materials for the protoplanetary disk. Scientists have wanted a sample of that for decades. Rosetta was originally proposed to be a sample return mission. Then they went for a well instrumented lander that would study the material in-situ. Then the lander failed, so the science remains undone.
The science case for a comet sample return mission is strong, if the resources are there to do it.
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#37
by
vjkane
on 06 Nov, 2022 22:50
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Given the shortage of resources, I wonder if they should delay the NF5 competition. I'm a little concerned that Mars Sample Return and Dragonfly are the two most ambitious planetary science missions ever attempted and that resources could run out if they run into trouble. There is also Europa Clipper, another big mission. And Psyche, Veritas, Davinci and NEO Surveyor. There is also the Roman telescope and all the Earth science missions.
If the competition goes ahead I expect a comet sample return mission based on the CAESAR proposal will run again. The previous proposal was managed by Goddard and built by Northrop Grumman. It was the runner up in the last competition, so I expect it will be a strong competitor.
The science case for a comet sample return mission is strong, if the resources are there to do it.
Don2 - I think that the answer to whether or not NASA will delay NF5 depends on their announced assessments of whether Goddard and John Hopkins APL are suffering the same problems. If not, that plus possible teaming with industrial partners may provide sufficient capacity for a real competition.
The comet sample return is a good mission concept (and at least three variants of it were proposed the last time with one becoming a finalist). As a betting man (who is often wrong!) my money is on that or the Enceladus multiflyby.
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#38
by
deadman1204
on 07 Nov, 2022 15:02
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Given the shortage of resources, I wonder if they should delay the NF5 competition.
Why? There are other places that can execute a NF mission. Just because JPL is out doesn't mean it should be delayed.
Also, delaying a new frontiers mission will push the next one back just as far at least. If NF5 is pushed back 5 years, that means NF6 is ALSO pushed back 5 years. All you functionally do is NOT get a NF mission.
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#39
by
Todd Martin
on 07 Nov, 2022 15:52
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A topic that has come up a few times with regards to NF 5, the South Pole Aitken Basin Sample Return mission, the lunar geophysical network mission, and CLPS, is getting lunar landers to survive the lunar night. This is not an impossible technical problem. After all, the Soviets did it with Lunokhod. The real issue is doing it relatively inexpensively and at low mass. Inexpensively almost certainly means doing it without a radioactive heating source. The mass issue is a tougher one. Presumably, you could pack a lander with batteries and run a low level heater during the nighttime. But that would be heavy and wasteful. Also, you really want to be able to operate at least some instruments during the nighttime--having a seismic sensor that only works during the day is not ideal.
The CLPS companies know about all this, and presumably they have ideas about how to address it. However, they are also all focused on getting their first lander to work, so they probably are not devoting many resources to solving problems farther down the road. (Many of these companies don't have much in the way of personnel or other resources, so they have to say very focused on the near-term.)
The NASA science community has sponsored a series of workshops on the subject of surviving the lunar night. There is one in December.
I've tried to get more information on this workshop to see if it will be webcastor recorded but not having any luck. Can you give any links or further information?