Article (and an opportunity to vote) on the Discovery program and the missions under consideration for summer 2012 selection

http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-set-to-cho...mission-1.10982

What is the exact date of the announcement of the winner?

NASA doesn't give exact dates for the announcement, but rather time frames. The latest I heard is that the announcement will come in July.

Generally, the three finalists all would produce excellent science, and a lot of weight is given to technical and budget risk in the final selection. Since the public can't evaluate those aspects, I've given up trying to handicap which mission is finally selected. TiME, if it has similar risk as the others, may have an edge because it must be selected this round to reach Titan when the northern lakes are in view of Earth to allow communication after splash down.

I voted for TiME... This mission just sounds and looks way too awesome. And this artwork sold it to me too: http://palebluespeck.wordpress.com/2011/06...forbidden-seas/

I also voted for TIME. What sold me was the fear that unless some mission to the outer planets is green lighted soon, I may not live long enough to see one come to fruition. Also a nice taste of what billions of years of low temp chemical reactions have brewed on titan would be very complimentary to cassini huygens.

Same here! If selected, we're right now less than 10 years from landing/splashing (June 2022), which is not too bad.

Actually no. Splashdown is July 2023.
When the TiME Mission was originally conceived in 2007 in response to a NASA study call, a 2015 launch was assumed, with 2022 arrival (which is reflected in some old meeting abstracts, and presentations, I think). In respose to the 'real' 2010 Discovery call, launch is in 2016 with arrival 2023.

Back when I started work on Huygens in 1990, launch in 1997 seemed far off, to say nothing of 2004 arrival. You'd be surprised how quickly the time goes....

Thanks for correction Ralf!
You're rigth, we'll be there faster than we think. On the other hand, Curiosity landing in 3 weeks from now seams faaaar away. This is may be because I check remaining hours 10 times per day

Thanks for the clarification!

But I assume the winner will be InSight because of its proven Phoenix platform, solar arrays power source etc. Unfortunate tendency to cut planetary science budget will lead NASA to save money.

Heh, I remember when I first heard about the Cassini-Huygens mission back in 1992. I didn't think my interest in space exploration would last up to 1997. And now I'm a bigger space geek than ever...

Oh I remember the Cassini launch and then thinking "ok in 7 years time it's going to arrive, what do I do in the meantime"
....lol.

I assume NASA will have a press confernce to announce the result? Since they haven't announced one yet, I assume the selection notification is still at least several days off?

It seems that way, alas. The Discovery program website http://discovery.larc.nasa.gov/discovery/index.html now says
'July 24, 2012 ... The new target date for the Downselection announcement is August 2012'

My experience with Cassini findings being sometimes deferred during e.g. manned program events is that NASA typically doesn't like to have multiple news stories come out close together which might dilute their individual impact, so I would guess they will not make an announcement in the middle of the MSL/Curiosity landing hoopla.

This is just my guess : I do not speak for NASA.

Bummer, Ralph. I agree with your reasoning, though: ain't nothin' but a delay. Chins up all around.

While I have my favorite, any of the missions would be a great selection. My tingling fear as we wait is that as in 2004, NASA will decide that none of the finalists were acceptable (presumably because of concerns about technical or budget risk that outside observers like myself never get to hear about). At least I can stop checking my new reader three times a day for a bit.

I love the concept of TiME, but I have to say that I have been wanting to see some heat flow information from Mars for quite some time. The seismic data will be very useful, but again, heat flow data will tell us a lot about the rate at which Mars' core cooled, thus letting us understand better the process of creating global magnetic fields in rocky planets. That's of great interest to me.

-the other Doug

I like the concept of Time but I'd really prefer a probe that ends up in the littoral zone rather than in the middle of a near featureless sea. I want to see what an alien shoreline looks like!

Well they don't plan for it to sink, or to drop anchor, so it must eventually drift ashore. We may see that beach.

If I'm remembering the right Titan lake, one shore has a gradual slope from the shore line, probably not that picturesque for a probe with a short camera mast. The other shore had hills. Perhaps someone who follows Titan better will remember.

All three of the proposals are superstars. I'll be happy with any of them, but while the others could fly at the next Discovery selection, TiME would be a much more expensive or a much shorter mission if the direct to Earth telecommunications geometry is lost.

Given the budget constraints of the Mars Exploration Program in the next couple of launch opportunities, I wonder if it would make more sense to transfer the existing funds to Discovery and fund InSIGHT and one of the others for Discovery 12. It would be nice to get back to two missions per announcement.

I heard today that the announcement should be 'a week to 10 days' away.

Thanks for the heads-up! *Crosses fingers for TIME*

I'm hoping for TiME too... Cassini has made Titan look like one of the most interesting places in the solar system...

The journal Nature has a poll on which mission it's readers would like to see selected (see here). The current results:

InSight - 49.7%

TiME - 39.3%

Chopper - 11.1%

I tried to post a poll on my website on future planetary missions, but for some reason the widget won't post.

That poll was actually in Ralph's post that began this thread; I see it's now closed.

Certainly it's not scientific nor objective by its very nature; there were apparently no restrictions on the number of votes cast by an individual, for instance.

Whatever the choice, I hope that the selection based on objective factors and not overwhelmed by risk avoidance; best of luck to all!

I was very surprised that TiME wasn't the leading choice. Presuming that the poll wasn't skunked somehow (e.g., multiple votes although a lot of sites don't allow more than one vote per url) it shows that different communities have different preferences. The Nature site is a general science site (the front sections of both the journals Nature and Science have some of the best general audience science writing available; their websites post a portion of that content).

We're unlikely to know how much risk avoidance plays into the final selection unless the proposing teams reveal the results of NASA's assessment. We won't know if the two missions not selected had technical issues or would have busted the Discovery program budget.

My fingers are crossed hoping that none of the three proposals have disqualifying problems and the decision comes down to the best science.

Having watched the poll, and how it would violently swing back and forth between strongly favoring Mars and strongly favoring Titan, I suspect that it was in a sense skunked.

audioconference in 3 hours
http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html

well... the suspense is over
NASA will send robot drill to Mars in 2016

From the Washington Post who, as Emily pointed out on Twitter, posted the Curiosity had landed 2 days before it arrived.

They may well be right, but wait for the conference.

If InSIGHT's selection is true, then I'm glad that JPL's EDL team will have a reason to eat peanuts again in 2016...though I REALLY wanted to see a spacecraft float in an extraterrestrial lake. Oh well.

ditto. CHopper was cool too!

I think it is pretty tough to argue with this selection. It's an instrument package that we've needed to send for a long time and it's got a well-defined risk profile.

Additional Thoughts:
I think this is a really important mission. Between it and Curiosity, we'll really be at an inflection point in Mars exploration strategy by 2018/20 or so, with prety good data confirming one of four big picture views of the planet:

1) Wet Mars and live internal heat/movement;
2) Wet Mars and no current internal heat/movement;
3) Dry Mars and live internal heat/movement; and
4) Dry Mars and no current internal heat/movement.

The relative value of a major effort like MSR compared to other solar system exploration priorities really depends on which of these four broad stroke pictures ends up being closest to the truth.

I have no reason to doubt that NASA made the right choice based on considerations of risk and scientific value. But I'd really been hoping that we'd get a glimpse of Titan's seas; I can't help feeling massively disappointed, even though InSight is an exciting mission. The long travel times and stubbornly slow orbital motions sure make it rough to be a fan of exploration of the Outer planets. And calculating my age at the time of the next opportunity for a TiME-like mission was the wrong approach to softening this blow...

--Chris

just wondering what science objectives can be accomplished by a single-spacecraft network. I understand that some data is better than no data at all, but still...
BTW with a bit of luck (and taxpayer money) there mayl be three new spacecraft on the surface of Mars in 2016:
InSIGHT, the short-lived ExoMars EDL demonstrator and possibly also a similar Chinese craft (see http://www.stfc.ac.uk/RALSpace/resources/P...MarsProbes.pdf).
And of course Curiosity (and why not Opportunity) will still be operational

Hmm...sounds like confidence in cost estimates was a key factor in Insight's selection. Insight came in a bit below the cap.

Yep. No more DAWNs.

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Very much appreciate the civility in this discussion so far, but just want to make sure that everyone keeps the Rules and Guidelines firmly in mind as it progresses. Thanks!


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My only wish is for color cameras; from the looks of this video they'll be essentially navcam/hazcam types, great for engineering but still black/white.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSTYvwodKO0...player_embedded


Any idea for the landing site or when it will be selected? I'm assuming near a volcanic region...

There's some information in this presentation from 2009. A presentation to the Decadal Survey Mars panel showed considerable work in trying to get the most from a single station. Unfortunately, the Decadal Survey link is gone, but I can send a copy to anyone who emails me. I wrote summaries of the tactics at my blog here and here.

MSSS could provide a range of color cameras for very low mass. http://www.msss.com/space-cameras/ More information on request.

That's assuming it's not too late to make a minor payload adjustment, is it? The payoff will certainly be worth it, even for a Phoenix-style landing site.

There's a pair of nearly finished MastCam's - one could find a lovely home on that arm. I really hope they can find the $ to do it.

What kind of $ would it cost?

A MastCam is more affordable than my dream, flying Sojourner's twin rover which is somewhere in JPL storage. The original proposal for the never flown 2001 lander would have flown this rover on a Phoenix/Insight-class lander. Oh, well, Curiosity will likely still be roving in 2016 and who knows, Opportunity might still be plugging along.

I also have to say I'm happy with the choice of InSight, as I've been seriously wanting heat flow data from Mars for a really long time, and a good, sensitive seismometer is worth an awful lot, too. (Too bad the seismometers attached to the Viking lander structures didn't work very well, if at all.)

Yet, as so many have expressed, it's bittersweet. We would all, I'm sure, love to see the vistas from a Titanian lake. However, remember that vistas are only one part of the reason for exploring our solar system. A good TiME mission would likely have given views of the ripples on the surface of the lake that are like a meter away, unless it would have had some kind of mast to raise a camera well above the top of the waves. A detailed study of the liquids in the lake would have been the primary mission, not sending back stirring images of distant shores. And as important and interesting as is that science, if we had to make a choice, I guess I'd prefer getting the heat flow and seismic data from Mars first.

Besides, a TiME-like probe could eventually be incorporated into an as-yet-undefined flagship mission to the outer planets. There likely won't be any further flagship-level missions to Mars in the near term, at least until we're ready to consider sample return. I like the idea of using a Discovery slot or two to fill in the gaps in our Mars dataset, to help us decide on the parameters of a potential MSR mission.

It will take a great deal of time to pony up the resources to explore all the places we want to explore. I guess in this case, we should rejoice in what we can get and cultivate patience for what we didn't get this time around. Because, as with orbital trajectories, what goes around, comes around.

-the other Doug

This is how I put it in my post announcing the decision:

"NASA's renewed focus on Mars missions provides a compelling reason for the InSight mission. Missions over the last twenty years have greatly deepened our understanding of Mars, and several missions continue their explorations. The Curiosity rover's mission is just beginning. Starting in 2018, NASA plans to begin a new series of missions. InSight neatly plugs a gap in our exploration of Mars -- the deep interior. In many ways, the surface geology and atmospheric chemistry of any planet are consequences of the composition, structure, and activity of the deep interior. With InSight, we can begin to link the interior, surface, and atmosphere in new ways."

My only concern is that NASA's planetary program not become only a Mars program. The next New Frontiers selection will help; the mission will be selected from:

- Comet Surface Sample Return
- Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return
- Saturn Probe
- Trojan Tour and Rendezvous
- Venus In Situ Explorer

Viking 1's seismometer didnt uncage, so no data
Viking 2 data was dominated most of the time by wind noise on the lander (which Insight's deployed seismometer with wind shield
will largely eliminate) although there was a pretty low background at night when winds were low. There was one possible M3.5 event
detected, but there was no contemporaneous wind data to eliminate a gust or so as the cause of the signal.

As it happens, I have NASA funding to examine the Viking seismology record for evidence of dust devils (the seismometer was
sampled more frequently than was the meteorology package) and, with the cooperation of one of the original
investigators, to archive the data (acquired long before PDS existed, and in a rather awkward format on NSSDC) in a more
friendly format.




You can do Mars geophysics now (2016), or in 2018, or in 2020......( or you could have done it in 1976, or ....) but we only discovered Titan's north polar seas in 2007, when TiME was first exposed to NASA, and good Earth view from Ligeia won't happen again until 2040. I am likely about the youngest person involved in Huygens from its beginning and I and colleagues were able to bring Huygens experience to bear on TiME.
I will be 71 years old in 2040.

NASA has its reasons for making its selection. Insight will be a good mission. But with respect, I do not agree with your programmatic reasoning.

I thought the alignment of the planets made the compelling case for TiME. Scientifically, there were three winners among the finalists, but only one mission that couldn't be done until 2040 without considerable expense.

At least three outer planet proposals were made for Discovery -- TiME, Io Observer, and Journey to Enceladus and Titan. None were selected. Since we aren't privy to the debrief data, we can't know if they were simply too ambitious for Discovery budgets (although the PIs were experienced and should have been realistic). Alternatively, all three might have been judged to fit within the Discovery budget and the decision was to go with the lowest technical risk mission: InSight.

In the past, Discovery mission opportunities were frequent enough that teams could stay together and refine their proposals for the next competition. With five years between selections, that may prove difficult.

InSight will be an awesome mission (as Chopper would have been), but I will always regret that we didn't take advantage of the TiME opportunity.

Ontario Lacus is in the southern hemisphere. It could easily become an alternate splashdown site, right?