All Announcements

From: James L. Green, Director Planetary Science Division
Subject: Mars Program Scientist Civil Servant position now available

The Planetary Science Division is now advertizing for a Mars Program Scientist who will be responsible for overseeing the science content and execution of assigned Mars Exploration Program missions and activities.

To find a detailed description of this position and additional information on qualifications and application procedures, please click on the USAjobs link below:

http://jobsearch.usajobs.gov/ftva.asp?opmcontrol=2088798

The position opened November 5, 2010 and will close on November 26, 2010. U.S. citizenship is required. All applications must be received no later than midnight Eastern Time on the closing date of the announcement, and NASA is an Equal Opportunity Employer and Provider.

The vitality of our Planetary Science program begins with the best people working at NASA Headquarters, so please take a moment to think about the future of the field and your role in making great things happen for the science community. I encourage you to apply for this fabulous opportunity.

A special announcement from Doug McCuistion:

NASA’s Mars Exploration Program has decided to create a second “Mars as Art” exhibit. Members of the Mars exploration community, please nominate as many images as you would like. All nominations must be submitted by October 8, 2010 at:http://mars-as-art.cloudapp.net

For more information, see this attachment: Mars-as-Art_community_call_letter-US_2.doc

The Mars Program Offices at NASA Headquarters and The Jet Propulsion Laboratory invite submission of new candidate landing sites for future missions. The goal is to gather information on future candidate landing sites and develop a list of high priority candidate landing sites for a range of possible future missions so that targeting by instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Odyssey (ODY) can begin while those orbital assets are still in operation. Proposed landing sites require submission of a short abstract (template available at http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/ andhttp://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/msl) and can be for a variety of future Mars missions (e.g., Sample Return, Network Science, or other potential missions), but must include specific but brief statements about the type of mission and mission science objectives, location of the candidate landing ellipse and how it addresses the mission science, desired target for initial imaging by MRO and ODY instruments, and basic information related to engineering (elevation and latitude that is supplemented by information regarding rock abundance, thermal inertia, and slopes where available). Preliminary science goals for Sample Return and MAX-C can be found at http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports/index.html. Candidate sites for MSL are excluded from consideration as there is a separate call for sites for that mission. An ellipse size of 15 km will be assumed for missions using MSL heritage landing systems, such as sample return or the MAX-C rover being considered for 2018. Missions using other landing systems must include an ellipse based on expectations from mission concept studies. 

New candidate landing sites can be submitted through the end of 2009 and should be submitted via e-mail to both John Grant (grantj@si.edu) and Matt Golombek (mgolombek@jpl.nasa.gov). Individuals are limited to proposal of 3 sites/specific ellipses and are responsible for including a summary review of existing MRO and other data for their candidate sites. After review and prioritization by the landing site steering committee, a list of up to 100 candidate sites will be provided to the MRO, ODY, and Mars Express teams for imaging during the first year. Data will be made available to proposers as soon as images/data products are available. It is anticipated that a dedicated landing site workshop will be held late in 2010 or early in 2011 to enable discussion of new candidate sites and it is likely that those sites deemed of the highest merit will be selected for additional imaging. This call for candidate new landing sites is an unfunded effort.

It is anticipated that a call for proposals (RFP) to support analysis of new candidate landing sites will be issued by Critical Data Products (CDP) Program at JPL in January 2010. It is expected that CDP will fund approximately 5-10 proposals at 25K for one year in early 2010 with additional funding anticipated for additional sites in future years.

Regards,
John Grant and Matt Golombek

Report on MEPAG's meeting of July 29-30 at Brown University in Providence RI. Attendance at the meeting was about 110 in person, including representatives from academia, multiple NASA centers, NASA-HQ, government, contractors, the press, and several international scientist including representatives of foreign space agencies (ESA, CSA).

The ESMD Implementation Plan communicates our approach for achieving the Agency’s ambitious exploration goals. In addition, it provides NASA employees, external partners, and stakeholders with an overall understanding of the ESMD mission, goals, objectives, and priorities across the organization.

More information is available at:

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/library/esmd_documents.html

Dear Colleague:

This is the first of what will be a regular series of newsletters to the community regarding the 2009-2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey. We all get too much email, so I'll try to keep these concise!

The key points in this newsletter are these:

1) The decadal survey will establish the priorities for planetary exploration in the U.S. for the coming decade.

2) The process is just getting started, and will take place over the next two years.

3) The goal is to formulate a plan for planetary exploration that truly represents the consensus view of the science community.

4) Community input to the decadal survey via participation in Town Hall meetings and generation of written white papers is strongly encouraged and in fact is necessary for the success of the survey. White papers should be submitted no later than September of this year.

5) More information is available at
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ssb/SSEdecadal2011.html

---
As most of you know, the Planetary Science Decadal Survey is organized by the National Research Council at the request of NASA and NSF. Its objective is to set clear priorities for solar system exploration for the coming decade. Congress and the Office of Management and Budget highly value the decadal survey process for establishing the science priorities in various NASA fields. The astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey is also now underway, and the political leadership -- i.e., the people who control the funding-- are familiar with this process and want it to be used for solar system exploration as well.

The distinguishing characteristic of the decadal survey process is that it is based on broad input from the science community. The goal is to establish a true community consensus regarding the key science questions for the next decade, and the suite of missions that should address them.

To describe NASA's view of the decadal survey, I've asked Jim Green, the Director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, and Doug McCuistion, the Director of the Mars Exploration Program, to write a few words.

 From Jim Green:

We are at the beginning of the development of the Planetary Science Decadal Survey that will chart our course for the next 10 years. If you are asked to be on one of the survey panels, I encourage you to accept. If you are not on a panel, please check the schedule for when and where the panel you are interested in will meet and plan to attend and participate. What makes the decadal a powerful document is the strong science focus and commitment by the community to follow it. It is the guide we use at NASA Headquarters, the current Administration and Congress. It is that important!

 From Doug McCuistion:

This decadal survey may be the most important one in decades for Mars exploration. I hope each of you will consider how to assist, advise and support the decadal team to create a successful and implementable approach to continue Mars scientific discovery.  Jump in, take the opportunity to participate when asked, or volunteer.  These proceedings will shape your Mars Program for at least the next 10 years, and I hope you will all engage to the fullest extent possible!

As Jim and Doug's comments make clear, the decadal survey is the process by which NASA's goals for exploring the solar system will be established for the coming decade.

The process will start from the science, summarizing the current state of knowledge in planetary science and identifying the key outstanding science questions. We will then address what mix of mission sizes (e.g., Discovery, New Frontiers, Flagship) would best address those questions, and generate a prioritized list of New Frontiers and Flagship missions for the coming decade. Missions to Mars and the Moon will be considered on an equal basis with all others. We will also consider a range of other topics, including NSF-funded infrastructure for planetary science, research and analysis activities, and technology development.

This decadal survey will differ from previous ones in that much greater emphasis will be placed on evaluating the technical maturity and probable costs of candidate missions. The goal is to produce a clearly prioritized list of missions that can be flown in the coming decade within the available budget. We will strive to avoid creating an oversubscribed plan!

The decadal survey will involve the entire U.S. planetary science community, and will be led by six groups. There will be a steering committee, chaired by me. Larry Soderblom of the USGS is the vice-chair of the steering committee. There will also be five panels, on the following topics:

Inner planets (Mercury, Venus, the Moon), Mars, Outer planets (including magnetospheres and rings), Outer planet satellites, Primitive bodies (asteroids, comets, Kuiper Belt objects).

Each panel will have a chair and a vice-chair; the panel vice-chairs will all serve on the steering committee. Total membership of the steering committee will be about 15, and total membership of each panel will be about 11.

This panel structure was arrived at after considerable thought, and consideration of a number of alternatives. Strong practical considerations regarding budget, schedule and logistics dictate that the number of panels be minimized. In the end, it was decided to use a panel structure that mimicked the one used for the last decadal survey. This has the considerable advantage of allowing each panel to use the work done by the equivalent panel from last time as a starting point. The primary difference from last time is that ten years ago astrobiology was segregated from the rest of the survey in a sixth panel. This time, astrobiology will be fully integrated into the five-panel structure, with astrobiologists as appropriate on each of the panels.

Over the next couple of months, membership for the steering committee and panels will be established. This is a careful process, conducted by the NRC and aimed at establishing a distinguished membership with the appropriate balance among scientific disciplines, institutional affiliations, gender, and so forth. The panels will do most of their work in the second half of 2009. 2010 will be devoted to studying and costing mission concepts, establishing priorities, and writing the report. The final report will be released in the first quarter of 2011.

The primary job of all the decadal survey groups will be to actively engage the entire US planetary science community in the process. We will do this via a variety of mechanisms.

We will hold a number of Town Hall meetings at major science conferences, at community gatherings like meetings of the standing Analysis Groups (LEAG, VEXAG, MEPAG, OPAG), in conjunction with panel and steering committee meetings, and in other settings. Your participation in these sessions is strongly encouraged.

We will also solicit white papers from the community. These written inputs are a key part of the survey process, and white papers on any topic of relevance to the survey are strongly encouraged. A good white paper should be very concise, with strongly-reasoned arguments.  Because the goal of the decadal survey is to build community consensus, it will be particularly effective for white papers to have many co-authors. We need to receive white papers no later than September of this year, so a good time to get started writing them is now.

Finally, we will try to make the activities of the steering committee and panels as transparent to the community as possible. For example, we hope to conduct live webcasts of the open sessions of all steering committee and panel meetings.

There's much more that I could write, but in the interest of brevity I'm going to save more details for future newsletters. If you'd like more information now, or if you'd like to volunteer to serve on one of the panels, go to:

http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ssb/SSEdecadal2011.html

This web site includes the formal statement of task for the decadal survey, a presentation about the survey that I recently gave at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, and instructions for how to volunteer. We will soon add a "Frequently Asked Questions" section and information about how to submit white papers to the site.

The Planetary Science Decadal Survey is the process by which the US program of solar system exploration for the coming decade will be established. Its effectiveness is derived directly from the broad community participation that characterizes it. I look forward to working with all of you in the months ahead.

Best wishes,

Steve Squyres
2009-2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey Chair

"Not only are our thrusters off and we are dropping in altitude, we are plunging toward Mars," said Dawn project’s chief engineer from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "And everybody here on Dawn could not be happier." The team's joy at plummeting towards a planet named for the Roman god of war is not unfounded. Mars, the final stop for many a NASA spacecraft, was always an important, and weighty, waypoint for the Dawn mission. It all has to do with one of the heavy subjects of rocket science, gravity assists.

Launched in September of 2007, and propelled by any one of a trio of hyper-efficient ion engines, NASA's Dawn spacecraft passed the orbit of Mars last summer. At that time, the asteroid belt (where Dawn's two targets, asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres reside), had never been closer. In early July the spacecraft began to lose altitude, falling back towards the inner solar system. Then on October 31, 2008, after 270 days of almost continuous thrusting, the ion drive turned off.

"Not only are our thrusters off and we are dropping in altitude, we are plunging toward Mars," said Marc Rayman, the Dawn project’s chief engineer from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "And everybody here on Dawn could not be happier."

The team's joy at plummeting towards a planet named for the Roman god of war is not unfounded. Mars, the final stop for many a NASA spacecraft, was always an important, and weighty, waypoint for the Dawn mission. It all has to do with one of the heavy subjects of rocket science, gravity assists.

A gravity assist is the use of the relative movement and gravity of a planet or other celestial body to alter the path and speed of a spacecraft, typically in order to save fuel, time and expense. A spacecraft traveling to an outer planet (or in this case asteroid) will decelerate because the incessant tug of the sun's gravity slows it down. By flying a spacecraft close by a large planet and its large gravity field, some of the planet's speed as it orbits the sun is transferred to the spacecraft. In Dawn's case, it is using the Red Planet's tremendous angular momentum (the speed at which Mars orbits the sun) to give it a little extra oomph.

"A big oomph actually," said Rayman. "The gravity of Mars will change Dawn's path about the sun, enlarging its elliptical orbit and sending the probe farther from the sun. It will also change Dawn’s orbital plane by more than 5 degrees. This is important because Dawn has to maneuver into the same plane in which Vesta orbits the sun."

If Dawn had to perform these orbital adjustments on its own with no Mars gravitational deflection, it would have required the spacecraft to fire up its engines and change velocity by more than 5,800 miles per hour (9,330 kilometers per second). Such velocity changes would have required Dawn to carry an extra 230 pounds (104 kilograms) of xenon fuel.

"Without the gravity assist, our mission would not have been affordable, even with the extraordinary capability of the ion propulsion system," said Rayman. "That's why we are happy Dawn is now plunging toward Mars."

Also happy for the opportunity to fly past the fourth rock from the sun is Dawn's science team. With asteroid Vesta still more than two-and-a-half years away, Mars provides the perfect opportunity to give their highly-tuned instruments a workout.

"It is fortuitous that we need Mars to get out to Vesta and Ceres," said Carol Raymond, Dawn's deputy principal investigator, from JPL. "Since there are other spacecraft currently operating at Mars with similar instrumentation, we will be able to check our measurements against their knowledge of Mars, and carry that information farther out into the solar system.”

But the Mars gravity assist is not the final hurdle on Dawn's road to the asteroid belt. The subsequent 30 months include more than 27 months of blue-green tinged ion thrusting to successfully rendezvous with Dawn's first target --Vesta.

While an accurately flown encounter with the planet Mars makes a big difference in the life of NASA's asteroid pioneer, the planet itself does not come out unscathed. Weighing in at all of 2,500 pounds (1,134 kilograms), Dawn has its own mass and thereby its own gravitational field. In contrast, the somewhat more massive planet is almost 600 million-million-million times more substantial than that of the spacecraft.

"The laws of physics tell us that Mars will pay a price for helping Dawn," said Rayman. "The flyby will cause Mars to slow in its orbit enough that after one year, its position will be off by about the width of an atom. If you add that up, it will take about 180 million years for Mars to be out of position by one inch (2.5 centimeters). We appreciate Mars making that sacrifice so Dawn can conduct its exciting mission of discovery in the asteroid belt.”

Dawn's 4.8-billion-kilometer (3-billion-mile) odyssey includes orbiting asteroid Vesta in 2011 and the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. These two giants of the asteroid belt have been witness to much of our solar system's history. By using Dawn's instruments to study both objects for several months, scientists can more accurately compare and contrast the two. Dawn's science instrument suite will measure geology, elemental and mineral composition, shape, surface topography, geomorphology and tectonic history, and will also seek water-bearing minerals. In addition, the Dawn spacecraft’s orbit characteristics around Vesta and Ceres will be used to measure the celestial bodies' masses and gravity fields.

The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of California, Los Angeles, is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Other scientific partners include Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Ariz.; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany; DLR Institute for Planetary Research, Berlin; Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, Rome; and the Italian Space Agency. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., designed and built the Dawn spacecraft. 

Tom Wilson, Technical Editor
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The presentations from the Special Meeting of the NASA Advisory Council's Planetary Science Subcommittee, held on January 9, 2009 at NASA HQ, are now posted on the "unofficial PSS website" at:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/pss/jan92009/

Dear Colleague:

The two year delay in the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) provides the opportunity for additional analysis of the proposed landing sites remaining under consideration.

We now anticipate a schedule that includes a fourth community landing site workshop in the early fall of 2009 followed by a fifth community workshop sometime in late 2010 or early 2011.

The fourth workshop will include detailed discussion of the science of the four proposed sites as related to MSL mission objectives and will include presentation of the physical characteristics of the sites. The fifth workshop will emphasize the science relative to the refined landing and roving capabilities of the MSL rover.

The dates and venues for these workshops and other activities supporting the MSL landing site selection process are TBD, but we wanted to take this opportunity to make you aware that activities are ongoing and that there will be every attempt made to include the science community in further evaluation of the final four sites.

We are contemplating a process to respond to any new discoveries that suggest a new, compelling site. The process for inclusion of an additional site is still being defined, but will likely include the requirement that proposed site attributes be verified in advance via detailed review and/or peer-reviewed publication.

We will do our best to keep you informed and involved as site selection activities move forward and we thank you for your continued involvement in these activities!

Sincerely,
John Grant and Matt Golombek
Co-Chairs, Mars Landing Site Steering Committee

On November 5, 2008, representatives of the MSL project management, engineering, and science teams met along with members of the external MSL landing site steering committee and selected review board members to discuss the engineering assessment of landing safety, basic traversability, and the current status of predicted actuator thermal performance, in order to combine this information with the science rankings from the 3rd Community Workshop recommended to the PSG. Based on assessment over the past months, the project resources and timeline allow only 3 or 4 sites to have the full data acquisition and detailed analyses required for final approval by next spring.

For more information see: msl_landing_site_memo.pdf

The third landing site workshop for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) will be held in Monrovia, CA, on September 15-17, 2008 (Monday through Wednesday) at the Doubletree Hotel

http://doubletree.hilton.com

A block of rooms at a discounted rate is being held at the Doubletree until August 1st, 2008 and a limited number of travel grants are available to support students (see below). The workshop precedes the MEPAG meeting (starting on Thursday, 9/18) also to be held in the Pasadena area.

We are soliciting presentations for the third workshop and invite you to submit a suggested presentation title for consideration on any of the 7 sites being considered for MSL before August 11th, 2008. We urge advocates for individual sites to identify additional presentations/presenters on topics relevant to the sites that may fall outside of their areas of expertise. Pending review of presentations submitted by the broader community, additional talks on topics related to some sites may be added by the workshop program committee. Our goal is to provide as comprehensive a discussion as possible of each site.

The bulk of the third workshop will be devoted to discussion of the 7 remaining sites with respect to scientific questions and criteria relevant to the MSL mission. These discussion points and criteria are posted on the MSL Landing Site websites: (http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/ and http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/msl) and should form the outline for science presentations made at the third workshop. The workshop will also include presentations on the physical attributes and surface characteristics of the sites as well as presentations on scientific themes related to the MSL science objectives. There will be ample time for discussion of the sites. The goal of the third workshop will be to produce a summary of the characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses of each of the remaining sites relative to the questions included in the discussion points/criteria document.

In order to ensure consideration of new data and discoveries at Mars made since the second MSL landing site workshop, the Mars Landing Site Steering Committee was recently charged with soliciting and reviewing proposals for new candidate landing sites for MSL. As a result of that activity, a new site (Gale Crater, 4.5S, 137.4E) has been added to the existing list of sites under consideration (based on consideration of newly available data). In addition, one of the existing sites (North Meridiani) has been replaced by one farther to the south (referred to as South Meridiani, 3.1S, 354.6E). The new South Meridiani site is deemed to be as safe, but be scientifically more compelling than the existing North Meridiani site. Materials related to these two new sites are posted at the websites supporting MSL landing site selection activities:

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/
http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/msl

A number of additional websites provide access to more information on the MSL mission, relevant engineering requirements, landing site selection process, and available data for the proposed sites. Websites where this information is posted include:

Descriptions of the MSL mission and a summary of NASA’s Mars exploration strategy are available at:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/overview
http://mars1.jpl.nasa.gov/mep/mslides/
http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports.cfm

Information on the MSL landing site selection process and sites discussed at the first two workshops along with supporting image data can be found at the websites supporting MSL landing site selection activities:

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/
http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/msl

Additional images and derived data products can be viewed at:

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ (HiRISE)
http://crism.jhuapl.edu/msl_landing_sites/ (CRISM)
http://www.msss.com/msss_images/subject/mro_ctx.html (CTX)
http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/HiRISE/hirise_images/ (HiRISE)
http://themis.asu.edu (THEMIS daytime, nighttime IR, VIS, and thermal inertia mosaics)
http://themis.asu.edu/landingsites/ (Decorrelation stretched THEMIS daytime mosaics)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/guest/ (MOC)
http://hrscview.fu-berlin.de/sites.html (HRSC)

Thanks to the folks at MSSS (MOC), THEMIS (ASU and Hawaii), HiRISE (U of A), and HRSC (The Free University of Berlin) who have made these data available to the community in support of landing site activities.

All members of the scientific community are encouraged to participate in this important activity. Input from the science community is critical to identification of optimal landing sites for the MSL. We look forward to your continued involvement in these activities!

Sincerely,
John Grant and Matt Golombek 
Co-Chairs, Mars Landing Site Steering Committee

ACCOMMODATIONS - AUGUST 1 DEADLINE
The workshop will be held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Monrovia, California, in the Pasadena area (924 W. Huntington Drive, 1-626-357-1900). A group rate of $118/night is available for Sunday, September 14 through the end of the MEPAG meeting following the workshop. Please reference "(MSL) Mars Science Laboratory Landing Site" and make your reservations before August 1. Other hotels are located in the vicinity if the special rate is sold out.

STUDENT TRAVEL GRANTS - JULY 30 DEADLINE 
The NASA Mars Program Office has announced that travel funding will be made available for a limited number of students who are U.S. citizens or legal residents with Mars-related interests. An application must be submitted by July 30, 2008 to be considered for this funding. NASA Headquarters will make the selections and announce the awards no later than August 20, 2008. An application form can be downloaded at:

http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/student.cfm?expand=student

Two new student opportunities have been posted in the Student Opportunities section of the MEPAG web site.
These cover the 2008 NASA Planetary Volcanology Workshop and the 3rd MSL Landing Site Workshop.

See: http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/student.cfm?expand=student