Principal-Investigator-Led Missions in the Space Sciences (2006) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-9
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The PI-led approach gives scientists more autonomy and freedom in the decision making and management of a developing space mission but at the same time enforces a strict cost cap that constrains competition for the selection and subsequent development of the PI-led mission. In the last 5 years, NASA has introduced two additional PI-led mission lines: Mars Scout provides mission opportunities for the Mars Exploration Program, and New Frontiers invites proposals for targeted solar system exploration.
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for PI-led missions. The review panels involved in evaluating and selecting PI-led mission proposals need to be able to make their decisions based on a more concise set of essential information and in the end to select from proposals that have made a short list and that have been better developed because proposers received funding to prepare mission concept studies.
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NASA should consider modifying the PI-led mission selection process in the following ways: · Revise the required content of the mission proposals to allow informed selection while minimizing the burden on the proposing and reviewing communities by, for example, reconsidering the TMC-lite approach and eliminating the need for content that restates program requirements or provides detailed descriptions such as schedules that would be better left for postselection concept studies, · Alter the order of the review process by removing low- to medium-ranking science proposals from the competition before the TMC review, and · Allow review panels to further query proposers of the most promising subset of concepts for clarification, as necessary. Finding.
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NASA should develop PI/PM teams whose combined experience and personal commitment to the proposed implementation plan can be evaluated. NASA should also provide opportunities for scientists and engineers to gain practical spaceflight experience before they become involved in PI-led or core NASA missions.
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However, like all NASA missions, PI-led missions are subject to the availability of NASA funding, annual NASA budgetary cycles, and agency decisions on funding priorities, all of which can disrupt the planned funding profiles for PI-led missions. Recommendation 6.
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A recently merged Discovery and New Frontiers Program Office is in the process of being reestablished at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) , and the relatively new Mars Scout Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is managing its first mission.
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However, a PI-led mission is more vulnerable than a core mission to cancellation or descopes because its cost cap was a key factor in its winning the competition. The committee considers termination reviews as an effective management tool for missions that overrun their cost caps, provided that both NASA and the project teams recognize that such reviews raise the prospect of Headquarters-mandated changes to the mission capability.
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While many records contain useful mission budgetary and schedule information, the committee was unable to obtain the kind of moderately detailed data that would normally be expected to be readily available for NASA's own internal use or for an analysis of historical trends. Consolidating records into a few standard templates for mission programs, including PI-led missions, would facilitate analyzing the cost and schedule performance of those missions.
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The committee believes that its report provides some useful suggestions and recommendations that would help NASA administrators, agency program managers, centers, and the science community as they continue to exploit this most grass-roots of NASA mission lines. 8NRC, 2004, Steps to Facilitate Principal-Investigator-Led Earth Science Missions, Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.
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