Discovery Program
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NASA's Discovery Program is a series of lower-cost, highly focused scientific space missions. It was founded to implement NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin's vision of "faster, better, cheaper" planetary missions. Discovery missions differ from traditional NASA mission where targets and objectives are pre-specified, instead, these missions are proposed by any organization while costs are capped. Proposing organizations may be teams of people in the industry, small businesses, government laboratories, and universities, and led by a Principal Investigator (PI). Proposals are then selected through a competitive peer review process. Development time of missions from start to launch cannot be longer than 36 months. Currently, for the 2006 Announcement of Opportunity, the cost is capped at $425 million[1].
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[edit] Discovery missions
[edit] Successfully completed missions
- NEAR Shoemaker, a mission to study asteroids, succeeded in its goals and is now defunct, having successfully landed on 433 Eros.
- Mars Pathfinder, a Mars lander with a miniature rover, completed its mission and is now defunct.
- Lunar Prospector, a Moon orbiter, achieved its objectives and was deliberately crashed onto the Moon's surface.
- Deep Impact, a mission in which a spacecraft was deliberately impacted into a comet, still has a functional flyby craft which may be used for an extended mission.
- Stardust, a mission to a collect samples from a comet's tail, has successfully collected its samples, returned its samples to Earth on January 15, 2006. The mother ship remains in orbit around the Sun and could be used for an extended mission.
[edit] Partially successful missions
- Genesis, a mission to collect solar wind particles, successfully did so, but the return capsule's parachute failed to deploy and the capsule crashed into the Utah desert; preliminary reports suggest that some of the samples survived the impact and that a good deal of scientific data may still be extracted from them.
[edit] Failed missions
- CONTOUR, a mission to visit several comets, was launched from Cape Canaveral on July 3, 2002. On August 15, contact with the craft was lost. Subsequent investigation revealed that it broke into at least three pieces, the cause likely being structural failure during the rocket motor burn that was to push it from earth orbit into a solar orbit.
[edit] Missions in progress
- MESSENGER, a mission to Mercury, was launched in August 2004, and is on its way to the planet via a circuitous route.
- ASPERA-3 is a 'Discovery Mission of Opportunity' (a NASA-designed instrument on board another space agency's spacecraft). It is designed to study the interaction between the solar wind and the atmosphere of Mars, and is on board the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter.
[edit] Forthcoming missions
- The Kepler Space Observatory, scheduled for launch in 2008, will use a unique spaceborne telescope specifically designed to search for Earth-like planets around stars beyond our solar system.
- The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) is a 'Discovery Mission of Opportunity' (a NASA-designed instrument on board another space agency's spacecraft). It is designed to explore the moon's mineral composition at high resolution, and is on board the ISRO's Chandrayaan orbiter.
- Dawn, scheduled for launch in 2007, will study the dwarf planet Ceres and large asteroid Vesta.
[edit] Forthcoming Discovery highlights
[edit] Selection of further Discovery missions
NASA has shortlisted on October 30, 2006 three concept studies for a new selection of Discovery missions [2].
Also selected for further study are three missions of opportunity that would make new use of two NASA spacecraft that have completed their primary objectives, Deep Impact and Stardust.
The following missions were selected for concept studies:
- The Origins Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security (OSIRIS) mission would survey an asteroid and provide the first return of asteroid surface material samples to Earth since Hayabusa. Michael Drake of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is OSIRIS's principal investigator. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., would manage the project.
- The Vesper mission is a Venus chemistry and dynamics orbiter that would advance our knowledge of the planet's atmospheric composition and dynamics. Gordon Chin of Goddard is Vesper's principal investigator. Goddard would manage the project. [3]
- The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission would use high-quality gravity field mapping of the moon to determine the moon's interior structure. Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., is GRAIL's principal investigator. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., would manage the project.
The three missions of opportunity selected for concept studies are:
- The Deep Impact eXtended Investigation of Comets (DIXI) mission would use the existing Deep Impact spacecraft for an extended flyby mission to a second comet, Comet Boethin, in December 2008 to take pictures of its nucleus to increase our understanding of the diversity of comets. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park, Md., is DIXI's principal investigator.
- The Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh) mission would use the high-resolution camera on the Deep Impact spacecraft to search for the first Earth-sized planets detected around other stars. L. Drake Deming of Goddard is EPOCh's principal investigator.
- The Stardust NExT mission would use the existing Stardust spacecraft to flyby comet Tempel 1 and observe changes since the Deep Impact mission visited it in 2005. In 2005, Tempel 1 has made its closest approach to the sun, possibly changing the surface of the comet. Joseph Veverka of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., is NExT's principal investigator.
