2015 Discovery mission selection

[Kryten]

The finalists for the next round of NASA's Discovery programme of relatively low-cost (~$500 million) planetary science missions should be announced later today. The Discovery programme only requires spacecraft have a build and operations cost below $450 million, and that they perform research on an object other than the earth or the Sun; therefore, there's always a huge variety of different missions, and that seems to be particularly the case this year. We know 28 missions have been entered, and, while teams aren't required to go public at this stage, most of them have. There's a good overview of the 19 missions we know about here.

Anyone have any favoured picks?

[More Boosters]

The asteroid one seems most viable to me as the only business case I can think of for going to space seems to be asteroid mining and any step towards that is probably better for the grand scheme of things than a purely scientific mission if we are to think a bit realistically.

[Mitchz95]

VASE and ELF look cool. It's been a while since NASA went to Venus, and the possibility of searching for life at Enceladus is exciting.

When would these missions be ready to launch? Obviously it depends on the launch windows, but how long to finish R&D and construction?

[Guest]

Phobos/Deimos mission.

[Kryten]

When would these missions be ready to launch? Obviously it depends on the launch windows, but how long to finish R&D and construction?

They have to be launched before the end of 2021.

[AngelLestat]

If it depends on me, I would go for these in this order:

VASE (Venus Atmosphere and Surface Explorer)

Enceladus Life Finder

Psyche

Mars Icebreaker Life: This mission can only enter in that budget if they become very efficient in the development process. Something that is very hard to believe, also PV does not seems to be enoght.

If it would be possible to choose another mission that is not included in that list..

I would choose a solar sail mission. After the development fail of sunjammer, we delay this technology like 4 years, and is very important to master this as soon as possible.

[Kryten]

Mars Icebreaker Life: This mission can only enter in that budget if they become very efficient in the development process. Something that is very hard to believe, also PV does not seems to be enoght.

PV worked on the same region for the exact same bus for Phoenix, and InSIGHT has shown the same bus can work on a discovery budget with a sufficiently spartan instrument suite. I doubt the selection committee will go for Mars twice in a row, though.

[fredinno]

I would like there to be 2 discovery missions chosen to be launched every time this time comes. Hopefully when JWST is FINALLY launched, it will free up some money for this stuff.

Otherwise, go to Venus- a mission to Saturn seems too ambitious for solar panels.

[SaturnianBlue]

My personal favorite is the IVO. Io is the only Galilean moon that probably won't get a flyby with JUICE or Europa Clipper, and with its intense volcanic activity, it seems like a interesting target. (I'm also interested in the potential for a Irregular moon flyby, Pheobe is the only such type of moon we've really had a nice look at). The Venus proposals are exciting, as Nasa has been paying so much attention (and money) towards Mars, and Magellan deorbited in 1994. The mission to Psyche would also be cool, a metallic rich massive asteroid is a type of body we really haven't seen yet. The Kuiper telescope would look for long term Gas Giant changes, look for KBOs, and even more. It's a safer and broader look than IVO or the ELF.

[Kryten]

The finalists have been picked. They're VERITAS, Psyche, NEOCAM, and two previously unrevealed missions; Lucy, a spacecraft to the Jupiter trojan asteroids; and a venus atmospheric probe called DAVINCI.

Now they each get a grant for further studies, and a final selection is made about this time next year.

[vger]

Bit of a tangent, but this talk of Psyche, is reminding me a lot of the old idea that the asteroid belt was a planet that either failed to form, or got destroyed by an impact. But I thought that hypothesis was killed years ago?

[Kryten]

Planets no, Protoplanets yes. There are even a couple left.

[Guest]

Lucy, a spacecraft to the Jupiter trojan asteroids.

That sounds pretty neat!

[AngelLestat]

PV worked on the same region for the exact same bus for Phoenix, and InSIGHT has shown the same bus can work on a discovery budget with a sufficiently spartan instrument suite. I doubt the selection committee will go for Mars twice in a row, though.

It needs perfotarate the ice crust, that requires a fair amount of energy. EDT in mars was achieve it many times, but still is a hard task.

The finalists have been picked. They're VERITAS, Psyche, NEOCAM, and two previously unrevealed missions; Lucy, a spacecraft to the Jupiter trojan asteroids; and a venus atmospheric probe called DAVINCI.

Now they each get a grant for further studies, and a final selection is made about this time next year.

Ok I should have knew that they would choose 2 missions for venus, they need an orbiter to repeat the signal from the atmosphere probe.

But now they change it for 1 descent probe instead a floating ballon.

I think the floating ballon should be more important taking into account the possibility to sent a manned mission.

Also it would not require much more money include a floating probe in this "venus pack".

Lucy seems a very boring mission, not sure what is the rush to know the history of the solar system (which I doubt that it would get too much evidence), now we need missions to work as precursors from the next important missions.

[fredinno]

I would like there to be 2 discovery missions chosen to be launched every time this time comes. Hopefully when JWST is FINALLY launched, it will free up some money for this stuff.

Otherwise, go to Venus- a mission to Saturn seems too ambitious for solar panels.

“NASA has selected five science investigations for refinement during the next year as a first step in choosing one or two missions for flight opportunities as early as 2020.â€Â

Which of the missions chosen do you guys prefer the most?

[Kryten]

Which of the missions chosen do you guys prefer the most?

For me personally, Psyche-one of our last chances to see an entirely new class of world.

[Aethon]

Cool! Psyche was the one I was pulling for. Imagine what craters on a solid metal body must look like.

[Kryten]

One of the higher ups at the discovery office is now saying that there's a good chance they'll be able to pick two missions for this opportunity.

Typically, NASA picks just three finalists in its Discovery competitions, which take place every few years. But this time the agency may choose two winners instead of the usual one, says Michael New, Discovery program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. The two winners’ development and launch would be staggered. “It depends on what our budgets in the out years look like,†he says. “Based on what we’ve seen to date, it looks like we’ll be able to do two.â€Â

[B787_300]

Kryten even with the supposed CR with a slight decrease until December? it doesnt seem like NASA has the money to do 2 separate Discovery Class missions

[AngelLestat]

The venus missions needs to be done together, because the Venus Express end its mission in January of this year, so there are not current orbiters in Venus.

The deltaV requirement for venus mission is the lowest from all other missions if they use aerobraking or aerocapture (venus is the most easier object in the solar system to perform this kind of maneuver, it was done 2 times in the past already, both successful)

So you can increase the payload by a 80% to 120% depending the manuver choice.

I think they will fuse both mission with a single rocket launch.

Veritas sounds fine (there are not many other things left to be done from orbit in venus),

Davinci is ok for a lander, taking measures and pictures meanwhile is falling, they already have the electronics to stand the heat long enoght. This probe can be light and small. If they add a ballon to the sphere and they inflate with water vapor, it can rise again, let the instruments cool down and then land again in a different spot.

They can also include a third probe, which can be very light and amazing in its functionality.

A mixed ballon with water and ammonia can cycle heights between 40km to 60km over a 6 hour period using the thermal differences of the atmosphere which it would condensate and evaporate water/ammonia at different levels.

Choosing the insulation and the amount of water/ammonia, you can choose the cycle levels and the period with higher accuracy.

It can also help to let the instruments cool down and measure a big portion from the atmosphere.

Valves and heat-pipes can be added to control the condensation and vaporization, which allow full remote control of the height.

Edited October 1, 2015 by AngelLestat

[Streetwind]

The venus missions needs to be done together, because the Venus Express end its mission in January of this year, so there are not current orbiters in Venus.

Japan will try again to achieve orbit insertion with their Akatsuki probe later this year. It may not necessarily survive until 2021, but if it does, it could also be used as a relay.

Additionally, I'm fairly sure that any team submitting a proposal for a Venus mission will also include a detailed description on how to get the data back in all possible cases. If they didn't, they would not have any chance to be selected. NASA isn't so dumb that they would spend half a billion dollars on launching a mission and notice only on its arrival at the destination that there's no relay station available. They've been doing successful deep space missions for decades, give them some credit

[Kryten]

Kryten even with the supposed CR with a slight decrease until December? it doesnt seem like NASA has the money to do 2 separate Discovery Class missions

Looks like they would plan to stagger them a couple of years apart, and delay the next selection.

[AngelLestat]

Japan will try again to achieve orbit insertion with their Akatsuki probe later this year. It may not necessarily survive until 2021, but if it does, it could also be used as a relay.

The akatsuki probe was not designed for that, so not sure if can repeat the signal, also its eliptic orbit it will be 300000km to 5000km.

It has a mass of 45 kg, so not expect much.

Additionally, I'm fairly sure that any team submitting a proposal for a Venus mission will also include a detailed description on how to get the data back in all possible cases. If they didn't, they would not have any chance to be selected. NASA isn't so dumb that they would spend half a billion dollars on launching a mission and notice only on its arrival at the destination that there's no relay station available. They've been doing successful deep space missions for decades, give them some credit

The first Venera missions dint have a relay bus in orbit to transmit the info, but they needed to transmit just temperature, pressure and few other parameters.

For the next Venera missions that was able to transmit images, they used a relay bus in orbit.

This also reduce a lot the mass of the lander probe or atmospheric probe. You also need high bandwidth to transmit all your data if the atmospheric or surface mission are not designed to last much time. Instead you can transmit in high bandwidth to an orbiter probe, and then this orbiter probe can take all the time it wants to transmit the data back on earth.

Not sure if I can said that I will be surprice if NASA not choose to fuse these 2 missions, after all... they are NASA, which is not a synonym of efficiency.

Any good design should try to solve as many issues with one solution. The Kuala Lumpur tunnel that works as highway and channel to avoid floods on the city is a perfect example of that.

https://youtu.be/w4MelscxP3A?t=36s

Merging missions is the best way to reduce payload in a considerable way, not need for extra heatshield if you plan to do aerocapture, not need for a lot of energy and a big antenna in each probe to transmit the data and one launcher.

Now each of these 5 missions will receive 3 millions each to improve the design for the final selection step, again.. it will be very dumb if veritas and davinci team does not join efforts to fuse the missions, they can also include a floating probe for the same cost.

[fredinno]

Kryten even with the supposed CR with a slight decrease until December? it doesnt seem like NASA has the money to do 2 separate Discovery Class missions

What's CR? On the other hand, Constellation cancelling Mars Scout did save some money...

- - - Updated - - -

The akatsuki probe was not designed for that, so not sure if can repeat the signal, also its eliptic orbit it will be 300000km to 5000km.

It has a mass of 45 kg, so not expect much.

The first Venera missions dint have a relay bus in orbit to transmit the info, but they needed to transmit just temperature, pressure and few other parameters.

For the next Venera missions that was able to transmit images, they used a relay bus in orbit.

This also reduce a lot the mass of the lander probe or atmospheric probe. You also need high bandwidth to transmit all your data if the atmospheric or surface mission are not designed to last much time. Instead you can transmit in high bandwidth to an orbiter probe, and then this orbiter probe can take all the time it wants to transmit the data back on earth.

Not sure if I can said that I will be surprice if NASA not choose to fuse these 2 missions, after all... they are NASA, which is not a synonym of efficiency.

Any good design should try to solve as many issues with one solution. The Kuala Lumpur tunnel that works as highway and channel to avoid floods on the city is a perfect example of that.

https://youtu.be/w4MelscxP3A?t=36s

Merging missions is the best way to reduce payload in a considerable way, not need for extra heatshield if you plan to do aerocapture, not need for a lot of energy and a big antenna in each probe to transmit the data and one launcher.

Now each of these 5 missions will receive 3 millions each to improve the design for the final selection step, again.. it will be very dumb if veritas and davinci team does not join efforts to fuse the missions, they can also include a floating probe for the same cost.

NO, Atsakusi is 517.6 Kg. Plenty for a relay station, when the Mars relay station, Mars Odyessy, is only 376 Kg. Its orbit is not that elliptical either.

Kala Lumpur's multitasking also increased the complexity enormously- the tunnel needed to support so much more weight in water.

Areocapture is never done anyways by NASA- considered too risky. Aerobraking is done instead, which doesn't need heat shields.

- - - Updated - - -

The venus missions needs to be done together, because the Venus Express end its mission in January of this year, so there are not current orbiters in Venus.

The deltaV requirement for venus mission is the lowest from all other missions if they use aerobraking or aerocapture (venus is the most easier object in the solar system to perform this kind of maneuver, it was done 2 times in the past already, both successful)

So you can increase the payload by a 80% to 120% depending the manuver choice.

I think they will fuse both mission with a single rocket launch.

Veritas sounds fine (there are not many other things left to be done from orbit in venus),

Davinci is ok for a lander, taking measures and pictures meanwhile is falling, they already have the electronics to stand the heat long enoght. This probe can be light and small. If they add a ballon to the sphere and they inflate with water vapor, it can rise again, let the instruments cool down and then land again in a different spot.

They can also include a third probe, which can be very light and amazing in its functionality.

A mixed ballon with water and ammonia can cycle heights between 40km to 60km over a 6 hour period using the thermal differences of the atmosphere which it would condensate and evaporate water/ammonia at different levels.

Choosing the insulation and the amount of water/ammonia, you can choose the cycle levels and the period with higher accuracy.

It can also help to let the instruments cool down and measure a big portion from the atmosphere.

Valves and heat-pipes can be added to control the condensation and vaporization, which allow full remote control of the height.

Davinci is an atmospheric probe, not a lander.

I like your 3rd probe, but then the mission would be in New Frontiers, not Discovery.

[B787_300]

Fredino a CR is a Continuing Resolution. It is a a tactic to delay the long budget fight in Washington. This one looks like it will push back the fight until December with a small decrease in spending across the board to keep the total under some caps. In general a CR funds the government at the previous levels for a short period of time.