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?
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.
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.
Because Dragonfly and Mars Sample Return are the two most ambitious planetary science missions ever attempted, and if they go badly over budget then one of the New Frontiers opportunities may have to be dropped. Even if Congress adds funding, that doesn't magically create additional experienced engineers and resources.
What I have in mind is pushing NF5 back by at least a year. That means more certainty about what Dragonfly, Mars Sample Return, Clipper and the Roman telescope are really going to cost.
There is also a lot of uncertainty about the US economy right now, and what that will mean for overall government spending. Interest rates on government debt have doubled over the past eight months, which will mean higher costs to service the national debt in future. It wouldn't surprise me if Congress pushed through cuts in spending. If a budget reduction collides with technical problems in Dragonfly or Mars Sample Return then the planetary program will be in trouble.
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.
What I have in mind is pushing NF5 back by at least a year.
Because Dragonfly and Mars Sample Return are the two most ambitious planetary science missions ever attempted, and if they go badly over budget then one of the New Frontiers opportunities may have to be dropped. Even if Congress adds funding, that doesn't magically create additional experienced engineers and resources.
What I have in mind is pushing NF5 back by at least a year.
I don't think you know just how unpopular an idea that would be in the scientific community. NF5 was supposed to happen several years ago. It's already very late. There are teams that have been waiting to propose for all that time.
What I have in mind is pushing NF5 back by at least a year.
I don't think you know just how unpopular an idea that would be in the scientific community. NF5 was supposed to happen several years ago. It's already very late. There are teams that have been waiting to propose for all that time.I think that Blackstar has the inside track on this. If anything, I'd expect that NASA might delay the target launch date (but not selection date) for NF5. It's a real headache and expensive to keep those proposal teams together.
I forget the details, but I believe that NF5 was originally supposed to be selected by 2019 and then got pushed back several times (maybe somebody can go look up the dates). There are a lot of people who are already annoyed by this and would be very annoyed at a further delay. Yeah, it's not their money, it's not even NASA's money. But the American space science program is heavily dependent upon the work of space scientists who work for universities, research institutions, and also NASA field centers. If the programs are managed badly, people will leave the field, find other things to do, lack motivation, and so on. So maintaining a regular and somewhat predictable cadence of new missions is important to effectively carrying out NASA's space science and exploration programs.
I forget the details, but I believe that NF5 was originally supposed to be selected by 2019 and then got pushed back several times (maybe somebody can go look up the dates). There are a lot of people who are already annoyed by this and would be very annoyed at a further delay. Yeah, it's not their money, it's not even NASA's money. But the American space science program is heavily dependent upon the work of space scientists who work for universities, research institutions, and also NASA field centers. If the programs are managed badly, people will leave the field, find other things to do, lack motivation, and so on. So maintaining a regular and somewhat predictable cadence of new missions is important to effectively carrying out NASA's space science and exploration programs.NASA is fundamentally a science agency, which means that the science community is a primary constituent. NASA needs to maintain good relationships with it (which is one of the reasons they have so many ways of reaching out to the science community).
I would not put it that way. If you are talking about all of NASA, I think NASA is fundamentally an engineering agency. The Science Mission Directorate is only one subset of NASA.
I would not put it that way. If you are talking about all of NASA, I think NASA is fundamentally an engineering agency. The Science Mission Directorate is only one subset of NASA.NASA is more than one thing (exploration and advancing the state of engineering are also goals), but the laws establishing and renewing the agency list science as a primary goal. This is unlike other federal agencies (some of which I work with) that do science, but not as a primary goal.
I would not put it that way. If you are talking about all of NASA, I think NASA is fundamentally an engineering agency. The Science Mission Directorate is only one subset of NASA.NASA is more than one thing (exploration and advancing the state of engineering are also goals), but the laws establishing and renewing the agency list science as a primary goal. This is unlike other federal agencies (some of which I work with) that do science, but not as a primary goal.
Most of the NASA budget is human spaceflight/exploration, which is fundamentally engineering. And if you look at the NASA workforce, way more engineers than scientists.
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.
I was thinking about this yesterday and I don't buy it. There was nothing in the Psyche discussion that said that JPL cannot take on new missions, and certainly nothing saying that they cannot compete for NF5. The time horizon for any NF5 launch is years away, and the selection won't occur for how long? A year or two? The work is going to start after Europa Clipper is launched. I don't see why JPL is out of NF5 at all.
However, if Europa Clipper (launch Oct. 2024) or Mars Sample Return (launch July 2028) goes over budget, new starts at JPL will have to be delayed. Dragonfly (launch Jun 2027) and the Roman Space telescope (launch May 2027) are being built on the East Coast, but they could also eat up the budget if they slip.
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.
I was thinking about this yesterday and I don't buy it. There was nothing in the Psyche discussion that said that JPL cannot take on new missions, and certainly nothing saying that they cannot compete for NF5. The time horizon for any NF5 launch is years away, and the selection won't occur for how long? A year or two? The work is going to start after Europa Clipper is launched. I don't see why JPL is out of NF5 at all.
Isn't it also a manpower thing? That jpl is just trying to do too much?
Isn't it also a manpower thing? That jpl is just trying to do too much?
Yes, but nobody said that they cannot take on any new missions, just that they have too much now.