Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the - Solar System ...

Near the end of the past decade, NASA introduced a new acquisition vehicle called Stand Alone
Missions of Opportunity (SALMON). In addition to their science return, Missions of Opportunity provide
a chance for new entrants to join the field, for technologies to be validated, and for future PIs to gain
experience. The committee welcomes the introduction of this highly flexible SALMON approach,
and recommends that it be used wherever possible to facilitate Mission of Opportunity
collaborations.
An important special case of a small mission is the proposed joint European Space Agency
(ESA)/NASA Mars Trace Gas Orbiter. The mission would launch in 2016, with NASA providing the
launch vehicle, ESA providing the orbiter, and a joint science payload that was recently selected. Based
on its high science value and its relatively low cost to NASA, the committee supports flight of the
Mars Trace Gas Orbiter in 2016 as long as this division of responsibilities with ESA is preserved.
Medium Missions
The New Frontiers program allows for competitive selection of focused, strategic missions to
conduct high-quality science. The current New Frontiers cost cap, inflated to FY2015 dollars, is $1.05
billion, including launch vehicle costs. The committee recommends changing the New Frontiers cost
cap to $1.0 billion FY2015, excluding launch vehicle costs. This change represents a modest increase
in the total cost of a New Frontiers mission provided that the cost of launch vehicles does not rise
precipitously; the increase is fully accounted for in the program recommendations below. This change
will allow a scientifically rich and diverse set of New Frontiers missions to be carried out. Importantly, it
will also help protect the science content of the New Frontiers program against increases and volatility in
launch vehicle costs.
The New Frontiers program to date has resulted in the selection of the New Horizons mission to
Pluto and the Juno mission to Jupiter. The former is in flight and the latter is in development. A
competition to select a third New Frontiers mission is now underway, with selection scheduled for 2011.
In this report the committee addresses subsequent New Frontiers missions, beginning with the fourth, to
be selected during the decade 2013-2022.
Based on their science value and projected costs, the committee has identified seven candidate
New Frontiers missions for the decade 2013-2022. All are judged to be plausibly achievable within the
recommended New Frontiers cost cap (although, for some, not within the previous cap). In alphabetical
order, they are:
• Comet Surface Sample Return—The objective of this mission is to acquire and return to Earth
a macroscopic sample from the surface of a comet nucleus using a sampling technique that preserves
organic material in the sample.
• Io Observer—The focus of this mission is to determine the internal structure of Io and to
investigate the mechanisms that contribute to the satellite’s intense volcanic activity from a highly
elliptical orbit around Jupiter, making multiple flybys of Io.
• Lunar Geophysical Network—This mission consists of several identical landers distributed
across the lunar surface, each carrying geophysical instrumentation. The primary science objectives are
to characterize the Moon’s internal structure, seismic activity, global heat flow budget, bulk composition,
and magnetic field.
• Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return—The primary science objective of this
mission is to return samples from this ancient and deeply excavated impact basin to Earth for
characterization and study.
• Saturn Probe—This mission would deploy a probe into Saturn’s atmosphere to determine the
structure of the atmosphere as well as noble gas abundances and isotopic ratios of hydrogen, carbon,
nitrogen, and oxygen.
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