Space Studies Board Annual Report 2008 (2009) / Chapter Skim
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5 Summaries of Major Reports
5 Summaries of Major Reports
Pages 37-73
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From page 37... ...
. Two reports released in 2007 but published in 2008Assessment of the NASA Astrobiology Institute and rading NASA's Solar System Exploration Program: A Midterm Reviewthe summaries were reprinted in Space G Studies Board Annual Report2007.
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NOAA's next generation of geostationary weather satellites will commence with the launch of GOES-R in 2015. Originally, plans for this series included four satellites -- GOES-R through GOES-U. However, in September 2006, following significant cost growth and estimates that the total program cost would nearly double, NOAA NOTE: "Summary" reprinted from Ensuring the Climate Record from the NPOESS and GOES-R Spacecraft: Elements of a Strategy to Recover Measurement Capabilities Lost in Program Restructuring, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2008, pp.
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The first, a workshop titled "Options to Ensure the Climate Record from the NPOESS and GOES-R Spacecraft" and held in Washington, D.C., on June 19-21, 2007, gave participants an opportunity to discuss options to recover measurement capabilities, especially those related to climate research, that were lost as a result of the NunnMcCurdy actions and the cancellation of the HES on GOES-R. Some 100 scientists and engineers from academia, government, and industry attended the workshop, commenting on a draft mitigation plan developed by NASA and NOAA as well as exploring options not included in the NASA-NOAA report.
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APPROACH TO AND SCOPE OF PRIORITIZATION Conducted during its December 17-19, 2007, meeting, the committee's prioritization of capabilities lost in program restructuring was guided by the following overarching principles: • The objective of the committee's deliberations would be to prioritize for the restoration of climate capabilities. For example, although a sensor with the capability to improve resolution of fast climate processes is of interest to both the weather forecasting and the climate research communities, it is the value to the latter that would inform the committee's ranking.
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From page 41... ...
The committee notes, however, that had costs been provided, a more far-reaching set of recommendations might have been developed 10 See Box 2.2 in Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond (NRC, 2007)
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However, it can be roughly stated that considering climate science contributions alone, geostationary hyperspectral sounding compares to the NPOESS capabilities prioritized as Tier 2, and coastal waters imagery falls into Tier 4. After completing the relative prioritization, the committee considered a wide range of options for recovery of the lost capabilities, including the remanifesting of sensors onto NPOESS platforms, accommodation of sensors on free flyers or flights of opportunity, and the use of formation flight to combine multiple, synergistic, measurement types without incurring the cost, complexity, and risk of large facility-class observatories.
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From page 43... ...
lost or degraded climate capabilities. The color coding used in Figure S.1 and Table S.1 -- green, yellow, blue, and pink shading to indicate Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4 prioritization, respectively -- is used as an interpretive aid in Chapter 3.
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From page 44... ...
The committee finds important limitations in the planned reliance on a polarimetric radiometer for this measurement; instead, the preferred strategy is timely development and launch of the next-generation advanced scatterometer mission, that is, the Extended Ocean Vector Winds Mission (XOVWM) recommended in the 2007 NRC decadal survey Earth Science and Applications from Space.
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From page 45... ...
Elements of this needed national policy include clear roles and responsibilities for agencies, international coordination, and community involvement in the development of climate data records. Clear Agency Roles and Responsibilities In the NRC decadal survey Earth Science and Applications from Space, the authors stated, "The committee is concerned that the nation's civil space institutions (including NASA, NOAA, and USGS)
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From page 46... ...
Finally, it is important to note that community concerns about the adequacy of NPOESS for climate research existed even before the 2006 program restructuring. For example, in the 2007 NRC decadal survey Earth Science and Applications from Space (NRC, 2007, p.
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SCIENCE MISSIONS THAT ARE ENABLED OR ENHANCED BY THE CONSTELLATION SYSTEM The committee evaluated a total of 17 mission concepts for future space science missions (11 were "Vision Missions" studied at the initiation of NASA between 2004 and 2006; the remaining 6 were submitted to the committee in response to its request for information) . The committee based its initial evaluation of each mis NOTE: "Summary" reprinted from Launching Science: Science Opportunities Provided by NASA's Constellation System, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2009, pp.
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From page 48... ...
Notably, the committee did not receive any proposals in the Earth sciences. The committee lacked sufficient data to determine why it did not receive any such proposals, although it notes that the Vision Mission effort that sponsored many of the mission concepts evaluated in this study did not include Earth science, which at the time was separated organizationally within NASA from space science.
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NOTE: The mission concepts are listed in alphabetical order. All of the missions listed are robotic missions, with the exception of the proposal for Exploration of Near Earth Objects via the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
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NASA is still in the early stages of identifying the potential benefits of the Constellation System to the space science program and has not made a dedicated effort to evaluate the potential of the Constellation System for space and Earth science missions. As a result, the committee determined that the agency needs to continue efforts to attract and advance ideas for space and Earth science missions in general, and should develop a method for soliciting potential mission concepts.
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Recommendation: NASA should conduct a comprehensive systems-engineering-based analysis to assess the possibility that the relaxation of weight and volume constraints enabled by Ares V for some space science missions might make feasible a significantly different approach to science mission design, development, assembly, integration, and testing, resulting in a relative decrease in the cost of space science missions. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION Virtually all of the mission concepts evaluated by the committee are large, complex, and costly.
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Finding: Science missions enabled by the Constellation System will increase the strain on the capabilities of the Deep Space Network. HUMAN AND ROBOTIC SERVICING Various proposers of observatory mission concepts suggested to the committee that large, expensive observatories might benefit from servicing, which would allow them to operate for decades and to be upgraded with the latest instruments.
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those currently available with the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) family of launch vehicles for science missions.
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Many of these missions have such large costs that they might require that funds be taken from numerous other, smaller science missions, which could create imbalances in the science programs in the individual disciplines. These missions will have to be evaluated carefully within the NRC's decadal survey process.
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The New Frontiers Program was created at the recommendation of the NRC's solar system exploration decadal survey, New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy (hereafter the "decadal survey") . The decadal survey recommended that in order to optimize solar system exploration, NASA's solar system exploration program required a series of principal-investigator-led missions larger than the Discovery-class missions, but not as large as flagship missions.
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The decadal survey treated Mars as a program, and the committee sees no reason why that should change. Furthermore, the committee believes that allowing any medium-size Mars mission to compete in the New Frontiers Program would run the risk of undercutting the overall Mars Exploration Program, and thus be counter to the decadal survey.
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From page 57... ...
These missions will make fundamental contributions to scientific understanding of the formation and evolution of the solar system. In reviewing the decadal survey, and listening to presentations by proposers in the previous New Frontiers competition, the committee was concerned that the mission options presented in the decadal survey were overly specific about the methods of accomplishing the science missionsthe so-called "mission architectures." For example, the Jupiter Mission with Probes described in the decadal survey essentially required atmospheric probes to return data from Jupiter's atmosphere rather than specifying the information to be gained and leaving the method of obtaining it to those intending to propose a mission.
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The committee was also impressed with arguments it heard about the importance of innovation not only in individual missions, but also in the overall New Frontiers Program, and about the risks of being overly specific on how to accomplish the goals of the decadal survey. Thus, in addition to the eight identified missions, the committee believes that NASA should offer an additional option for other missions in the same size class that can acquire compelling information answering high-priority science questions from the decadal survey.
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Although its statement of task also refers to Earth science missions, the committee points out that the Vision Missions effort was focused on future astronomy, heliophysics, and planetary exploration and did not include any Earth science studies because, at the time, the NRC was conducting the first Earth science decadal survey, and funding Earth science studies as part of the Vision Missions effort would have interfered with that process. Consequently, no Earth science missions are evaluated in this interim report.
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Kilometer-Baseline >$5 Low No The need for Constellation is questionable, Far-Infrared/ except for human servicing. Submillimeter Interferometer Modern Universe >$5 Highmission concept, Yes Large one-piece, central mirror is possible with Space Telescope instruments Ares V rather than a robotically assembled (MUST)
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From page 61... ...
NASA should conduct further studies of the scientific benefits as well as the technical benefits to mission execution, such as reduction of mission complexity and risk, enabled by the Constellation System for the following missions: Generation-X, Modern Universe Space Telescope, Stellar Imager, Interstellar Probe, Solar Polar Imager, Neptune Orbiter with Probes, and Titan Explorer. The committee accepted the cost estimates provided by the Vision Mission studies themselves or by the study representatives who presented them to the committee.
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Some of these technologies are of a basic, mission-enabling nature; others provide options that can be traded for alternative mission architectures. • Basic enabling technologies Free-flying constellations Tethered flight Next-generation Deep Space Network Space nuclear reactors • Technologies enabling alternatives to Ares V Aerocapture Solar sails Solar-electric propulsion Nuclear-electric propulsion Robotic assembly and servicing • Technologies enhancing Constellation capabilities Human assembly and servicing See,for example, National Research Council, Grading NASA's Solar System Exploration Program: A Midterm Review, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2008, pp.
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NOTE: "Summary" reprinted from Severe Space Weather EventsUnderstanding Societal and Economic Impacts: Workshop Report, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2008, pp.
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for 30 hours during the severe space weather events of October-November 2003. With increasing awareness and understanding of space weather effects on their technologies, industries have responded to the threat of extreme space weather through improved operational procedures and technologies.
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Although NASA's role is scientific rather than operational, NASA science missions such as ACE provide critical space weather information, and NASA's Living with a Star program targets research and technologies that are relevant to operations. NASA-developed products that are candidates for eventual transfer from research to operations include sensor technology and physics-based space weather models that can be transitioned into operational tools for forecasting and situational awareness.
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From page 66... ...
The requirement for a solar wind monitor at L1 is particularly important because ACE, the SWPC's sole source of real-time upstream solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field data, is well beyond its planned operational life, and provisions to replace it have not been made. UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIETAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF SEVERE SPACE WEATHER The title of the workshop on which this report is based, "The Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather," perhaps promised more than this subsequent report can fully deliver.
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2. For the spacecraft industry, for example, space weather predictions are less important than knowledge of climatology and especially of the extremes within a climate record.
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UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF A NET CAST TOO BROADLY The space science community acknowledges the sensitivity of much hardware and technology related to space activity, but they also argue that controlling "everything that flies in space" casts too broad a net. The current administration has actually recognized the mismatch between the ITAR control regime and the low levels of risk inherent in the bulk of international space science activity.
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space science community as it endeavors to maintain world leadership. The United States has many space-related policy priorities in addition to national security, including space leadership, university excellence, and international partnerships.
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Space Program: A Summary Report of a Workshop on National Space Policy, additional developments have taken place to redirect many elements of the civil space program. The Vision for Space Exploration set forth by the executive branch in 2004, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
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PUBLIC INTEREST AND SUPPORT In assessing contemporary public interest in and support for space activities, some participants commented that programs such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars rovers are popular and have a "wow factor"; other National Research Council, Workshop Series on Issues in Space Science and Technology: Summary of Space and Earth Science Issues from the Workshop on U.S. Civil Space Policy, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2008, p.
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From page 72... ...
Discussion also addressed but did not reach agreement on whether, and if so to what extent, the civil space program needs to demonstrate practical benefits and value, a "wow" factor, or some mix of both. Balancing the pursuit of science, human space exploration, aeronautics, and other dimensions of space activities was also a concern among participants.
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CONCLUDING THEMES The workshop concluded with the consolidation of discussion topics, which fell into three broad categories: communicating about space exploration; international competition, cooperation, and leadership; and ensuring robust ness through new approaches and attitudes. One idea for avoiding the impending programmatic "train wreck" to which many participants referred during the workshop was to "slow down the train" by deferring the first human mission to the Moon; extending the use of the International Space Station in support of research and development for later human exploration; establishing a telepresence on the Moon; creating an environment of institutional stability in NASA's program elements; building globally inclusive working groups on direct missions to Mars, global change, and space science; and defining real, meaningful jobs for humans in space.
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