NASA Selects Science Investigations For Concept Studies

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. PHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673/Jane Platt 818-354-0880
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.platt@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-305 Sept. 29, 2011

NASA Selects Science Investigations For Concept Studies

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-305&cid=release_2011-305

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA has selected 11 science proposals, including one from the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, for evaluation as potential future science missions. The proposals outline
prospective missions to study the Earth's atmosphere, the sun, the Milky Way galaxy, and Earth-like
planets around nearby stars.

The selections were made from responses to Announcements of Opportunity for Explorer Missions
and Explorer Missions of Opportunity released by the agency last November. The proposals were
judged to have the best science value and feasible development plans.

"NASA continues to seek opportunities to push the cutting edge of science," said Paul Hertz, chief
scientist for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. "Innovative proposals like these will
help us better understand our solar system and the universe."

Five Explorer Mission proposals were selected from 22 submitted in February. Each team will
receive $1 million to conduct an 11-month mission concept study. Mission costs are capped at $200
million each, excluding the launch vehicle. In addition, one Explorer Mission proposal was selected
for technology development and will receive $600,000. Five Mission of Opportunity proposals were
selected from 20 submissions. Each will receive $250,000 to conduct an 11-month implementation
concept study. Mission costs are capped at $55 million each.

Following the detailed mission concept studies, NASA plans to select up to two of the Explorer
Mission proposals and one or more of the five Mission of Opportunity proposals in February 2013.
The missions would then proceed toward flight and some could launch by 2016.

The selected Explorer Mission proposals are:

-Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) Thomas Immel, Principal Investigator (PI), University of
California, Berkeley -- The mission would fly instruments to understand the extreme variability in
our Earth's ionosphere, which can interfere with communications and geopositioning signals.

-Fast INfrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer (FINESSE) Mark Swain, PI, Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. -- This proposal would use a space telescope to survey more than 200
planets around other stars. This would be the first mission dedicated to finding out what comprises
exoplanet atmospheres, what conditions or processes are responsible for their composition, and how
our solar system fits into the larger family of planets.

-Observatory for Heteroscale Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling (OHMIC) James Burch, PI,
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio -- The mission would use a pair of spacecraft flying in
formation to study the processes that provide energy to power space weather storms. These storms
create auroras and other electromagnetic activity that can impact orbiting spacecraft operations.

-Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) George Ricker, PI, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass. -- Using an array of telescopes, TESS would perform an all-sky
survey to discover transiting exoplanets, ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, in orbit around the
nearest and brightest stars in the sky. The mission's primary goal would be to identify terrestrial
planets in the habitable zones of nearby stars.

-Atmosphere-Space Transition Region Explorer (ASTRE) Robert Pfaff Jr., PI, NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. -- The mission would study the interaction between the Earth's
atmosphere and the ionized gases of space. By flying excursions deep into the Earth's upper
atmosphere, its measurements would improve satellite drag models and show how space-induced
currents in electric power grids originate and evolve with time.

The selected Explorer Mission of Opportunity proposals are:

-Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) Richard Eastes, PI, University of Central
Florida, Orlando -- This would involve an imaging instrument that would fly on a commercial
communications satellite in geostationary orbit to image the Earth's thermosphere and ionosphere.

-Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) Keith Gendreau, PI, Goddard -- This mission
would place an X-ray timing instrument on the International Space Station (ISS) to explore the exotic
states of matter within neutron stars and reveal their interior and surface compositions.

-Coronal Physics Investigator (CPI) John Kohl, PI, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory,
Cambridge -- A solar telescope would be mounted on the ISS to investigate the processes that
produce the sun's fast and slow solar wind.

-Gal/Xgal U/LDB Spectroscopic/Stratospheric THz Observatory (GUSSTO) Christopher Walker, PI,
University of Arizona, Tucson -- This mission would launch a high altitude balloon with a one-meter
telescope to provide a comprehensive understanding of the inner workings of our Milky Way galaxy
and one of our galaxy's companion galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

-Ion Mass Spectrum Analyzer for SCOPE (IMSA), Lynn Kistler PI, University of New Hampshire,
Durham -- This partner mission of opportunity would provide a composition instrument to the
Japanese cross-Scale Coupling in the Plasma universE (SCOPE) mission. SCOPE will study
fundamental space plasma processes including particle acceleration, magnetic reconnection, and
plasma turbulence.

The proposal selected for technology development funding is:

-The Exoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer (EXCEDE), Glenn Schneider, PI,
University of Arizona, Tucson – The technology development effort will enable studies of the
formation, evolution, and architectures of exoplanetary systems through direct imaging.

The Explorer program is the oldest continuous program at NASA. It is designed to provide frequent,
low-cost access to space using PI-led space science investigations relevant to the agency's
astrophysics and heliophysics programs. Initiated with the Explorer 1 launch in 1958 that discovered
the Earth's radiation belts and including the Cosmic Background Explorer mission that led to Nobel
prizes for their investigators, the Explorer program has launched more than 90 missions. It is
managed by Goddard for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the Explorer program, visit: http://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov .

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena.

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