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million in fy2019 dollars nasa provides management the launch and covers mission operations in addition to the pi costs these other costs can be substantial the projected full cost of the lucy mission is 914 984 million and the psyche mission is 907 957 million when the pi costs were capped at 450 million in fy2015 dollars the pi budget can be adjusted upward by up to 20 million by adding a technology demonstration see below or up or down by 10 20m by selecting a less capable or a more capable launch vehicle than the baseline instruments up to approximately one third of the payload can be contributed by foreign space agencies or governments outside of the pi cost cap the target schedule for the selection and launches of the discovery missions is ao release date target february 28 2019 proposals due may 31 2019 selection of up to 5 finalists december 20 2019 selection of up to 2 final missions march 31 2021 1st launch period july 1 2025 through dec 31 2026 2nd launch period july 1 2028 through dec 31 2029 nasa will select the winning proposals based on three criteria scientific merit of the proposed investigation 40 scientific implementation merit and feasibility of the proposed investigation 30 technical management and cost feasibility of the proposed mission implementation 30 proposed missions can use the plutonium 238 mmrtg power systems however including these will cost the pi budget 54 million for the first mmrtg and an additional 15 million for the second in what i believe is a new opportunity for discovery proposals pi s can propose or nasa may add an enhancing technology demonstration opportunity tdo consists of either pi team developed or nasa developed technologies that may have a trl of less than 6 approaching but not yet ready for flight when proposed is not required to achieve the baseline or the threshold science mission but could enhance the scientific return or reduce cost and complexity of the proposed mission and or future missions an enhancing tdo may be an instrument investigation new technology hardware or software demonstrated on either the flight system missions are also expected to provide active research opportunities for current or aspiring graduate or undergraduate students including advanced high schoolers scs may involve students in multiple aspects of a mission spanning scientific formulation mission planning systems engineering design and development of flight hardware qualification test and integration and mission operations and data analysis no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest sunday april 29 2018 a comet or titan the next new frontiers mission the two concepts contending to be selected as nasa s next planetary mission have two things in common both would do compelling science both would not begin their scientific missions until the mid 2030s otherwise the two missions could not be more different the comet astrobiology exploration sample return caesar mission would return to the comet 67p churyumov gerasimenko that the rosetta spacecraft and its lander philae previously studied the caesar spacecraft essentially would be a high tech truck that would grab a small sample from the surface and then return it to earth except for some ancillary observations performed by its engineering cameras the science would begin when the samples are delivered to the exquisitely sophisticated instruments in terrestrial laboratories where they would be analyzed grain by grain and isotope by isotope the dragonfly mission would return to the surface of saturn s moon titan that is at once both an earth like and an utterly alien world the craft would alternate between flights to new locations and much longer periods as a stationary surface station every flight would be a voyage of discovery above a barely known surface every landing could provide a new site to explore in depth every minute of its potentially many year sojourn at titan would be spent doing science both missions are finalists in the competition to be nasa s fourth new frontiers mission previous selections were the new horizon s pluto kuiper belt spacecraft the juno jupiter orbiter and the osiris rex asteroid sample return mission these are the mid class missions of nasa s solar system exploration program that are launched once to twice a decade nasa s managers selected these two concepts from a field of twelve proposals and here the caesar and dragonfly missions differ so much because they represent different stages in the progression of exploration comets have already had several flyby missions and one orbiter lander mission as a result the top priority among comet specialists is to progress to the next step sample return further exploration isn t the priority the lowest risk mission that grabs and brings back the sample is the best mission titan on the other hand was studied by the cassini spacecraft through a multitude of flybys that cumulatively mapped the surface at only low to moderate resolution titan s atmosphere was also explored by the huygens probe that descended to the surface but it carried out only the simplest measurements of surface s physical properties once it landed the next step is to land to study the surface in detail titan offers a unique opportunity in the solar system where a thick atmosphere coupled with low gravity allows a science station to relocate itself by flying to new sites for this world exploration is the priority caesar comets are deep frozen remnants from the birth of our solar system they contain relatively unaltered ices and dust from the interstellar cloud from which our solar system formed as well as the processed material that resulted from the earliest steps in the formation of comet sized bodies by returning samples to earth scientists can determine what materials were available to build the planets they also can study the earliest chemical pathways that led to creating more complex molecules and the physical processes that accumulated the interstellar material into larger bodies as one recent scientific paper put it comets record chemical evolution in the protoplanetary disk and allow us to unveil the formation history of the organics and volatiles while another in the same issue notes that the rosetta spacecraft found that comet 67p revealed a greater variety of molecules than previously identified and indicated that 67p contained both primitive and processed organic entities the caesar mission would return to comet 67p churyumov gerasimenko credit esa rosetta mps for osiris team mps upd lam iaa sso inta upm dasp ida processing by giuseppe conzo however instruments that can fit the tight mass size and power budgets to be flown on spacecraft are limited in their ability to explore the composition of these materials the far more sophisticated instruments in earth based laboratories which can be larger than entire spacecraft or even launch vehicles can study samples grain by grain and isotope by isotope the ultimate exploration goal where technically feasible for each world is to bring samples back to our world to explore their formation and evolution in depth the team proposing the caesar mission has laid out a series of hypotheses that would be enabled by examining samples in terrestrial laboratories arranged in three themes the hypotheses address different periods in the formation of the solar system starting with the transition from the interstellar cloud from which the solar system formed the hypotheses for this theme address questions on what types of unaltered interstellar material were preserved or not in 67p the next theme addresses the nature of the material in the protoplanetary disk and hence the material that would have been available to build the earliest small bodies here the key questions focus on whether 67p is a direct descendant of the interstellar medium or also contains high temperature silicates and organics that would have formed close to the early sun and then been blown out to the outer solar system and trapped within the material that formed 67p the final theme addresses how the current body that is 67p formed from the initial grains of ice and rock available in the earliest solar system and what role bodies like it played in delivering materials especially volatiles such as water to the planets the caesar mission would be a companion mission to the previously selected and now in flight osiris rex new frontiers mission while comets are the oldest frozen remains of the solar system s formation several classes of asteroids are considered primitive relics of the earliest formation of solid bodies closer to the sun the osiris rex spacecraft will arrive at one of these 101955 bennu later this year following a thorough examination of this tiny 245 meter diameter body by a battery of remote sensing instruments the spacecraft will descend and a robotic arm will grab a sample from the surface to be returned to earth collecting samples from very small bodies is an engineering challenge because the gravity is too low to enable conventional landings and surface operations like the japanese hayabusa and osiris rex asteroid sample return missions the caesar spacecraft would use a touch and go sampling mechanism the spacecraft would slowly descend to the surface with a sample collection system at the end of a long arm below the craft during the five seconds that the collection system would be in contact with the surface nitrogen gas would be used to blow the comet s surface material into a containment system because comets contain ices that can freeze into a solid surface the caesar collection system unlike the osiris rex system where ices aren t expected would have spring loaded ripper tines to break up the surface the mission s goal is to collect at least 80 grams of dust and ices although the collection system can gather several times that if enough loose material is available after that brief contact the arm acts as a pogo stick pushing the spacecraft away from the surface and back into space the caesar spacecraft with its extended arm and sampling mechanism credit nasa again like osiris rex following confirmation from instruments that a sample was successfully collected the containment system with its sample would be placed within a sample return capsule that ultimately would deliver the sample to earth following a fiery plunge through the atmosphere however this capsule and its embedded sample containment system have two major innovations not needed by the osiris rex mission for the caesar mission a key goal is to return both the dusty component and minimally modified samples of the icy volatile material once in the sample return capsule the sample would be gently heated to approximately 30 degrees celsius to sublimate the volatiles out of the sample if 30 sounds chilly remember that comets are deep frozen relics even following heating by the sun during their passages through the inner solar system the sublimated gases would flow to a gas containment system that would be kept at 60 degrees celsius where they would either refreeze for example water or remain as gases for example methane and carbon dioxide depending on their freezing points removing the volatiles from the sample ensures that they don t chemically modify the solid sample during the return flight to earth keeping them chilled in the gas containment system also minimizes chemical interactions among the volatiles the need to preserve a frigid sample system drives a second difference from the osiris rex return system during the plunge through the earth s atmosphere at the end of the mission the heat shield would absorb considerable heat that would eventually raise the temperature of the sample for the rocky material that the osiris rex mission would return this isn t a concern however the caesar mission would drop the heat shield from the return capsule as soon as the parachute deploys minimizing any heating of the sample this is a technology developed by the japanese for their hayabusa asteroid sample return missions and their space agency would provide the caesar return capsule there s another important difference between the osiris rex and caesar missions to intelligently select and later interpret samples scientists need to understand the parent body what is its shape and interior structure what processes have shaped it surface how does the composition vary across the body the osiris rex mission is going to a body that has never been visited before as a result that spacecraft carries a rich payload of cameras and spectrometers to map the physical surface and its composition if the mission only completes its survey of the asteroid bennu but for some reason fails to return its sample to earth it would have told us a great deal about how this tiny primitive asteroid came to be the caesar mission s target comet 67p was previously studied by the rosetta mission and its partially successful philae lander as a result the casear spacecraft wouldn t need to carry its own scientific instruments it does carry narrow and wide angle engineering cameras that would be used to remap 67p s surface which is likely to have changed during its subsequent perihelion passages from solar heating identifying the changes would be a useful scientific byproduct from these images the science and engineering teams would map the surface in terms of how safely the spacecraft can approach the surface whether the surface material has physical characteristics compatible with the sampling mechanism whether the arm can deliver the sample mechanism to the surface and the intrinsic science value based on maps derived from the rosetta images the caesar team is currently expecting to take its sample from one of the smooth terrains that appear to consist of material that has slumped there from the rugged terrains that would be unsafe to sample directly the smooth terrains also likely contain material delivered from the jets that spew a cloud of volatiles and dust in the space around 67p each time it comes close to the sun because the rocky and organic materials appear to be nearly uniformly distributed across surface the key deciding factor on the final sample location likely would be made based on the richness of the volatiles present once the caesar spacecraft acquires its sample it would quickly move away from the comet to wait for the start of its journey back to earth if all goes well the sample would be delivered to the earth s surface in the midmorning of november 20 2038 fourteen years after the mission s launch following the recovery of the sample capsule the returned gases ices and solids would be carefully curated and preserved the initial analyses on a portion of the sample would be conducted using laboratory instruments that would be 20 years more advanced than those available today it s expected that the samples would continue to be analyzed for decades following their arrival on earth as scientists...