Talk:Selection of Discovery Mission 13 and 14

Migrating info from 'Discovery Program'
The following info is a copy/paste of one whole section from the article at Discovery Program. The details of that particular selection are extensive, so I'm leaving a summary there at Discovery Program per Summary style, while linking to the parent article, which is this one (Selection of Discovery Mission 13 and 14). Any information not yet presented, will be copied there in the next several hours. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 16:08, 6 January 2018 (UTC)



Lucy and Psyche are the 13th and 14th Discovery missions, respectively.

In February 2014, NASA released a Discovery Program 'Draft Announcement of Opportunity' for launch readiness date of December 31, 2021. The main mission was budgeted for up to 450 million USD, with various conditions but also bonuses available beyond this to support advancement of various technologies. For the first time, the $450 million cost cap will not include post-launch operations expenses. The final requirements were released on November 5, 2014; amongst other things they clarified the laser communication package was not a requirement but, if included, could grant a budgetary bonus.
 * An additional $30 million available if it attempts to demonstrate laser communication (as opposed to radio communication) in space, by sending data with lasers beyond one lunar distance (distance from Earth to the Moon).
 * An additional $10 million available if it demonstrates a 3D woven heat shield
 * An additional $5 million available if it incorporates the miniaturized Deep Space Atomic Clock
 * The NEXT xenon ion thruster and a radioisotope heater unit are also available for the mission without additional incentives.

On September 30, 2015, NASA selected five mission concepts—DAVINCI, VERITAS, Lucy, NEOcam and Psyche—as semifinalists. Each of the five semifinalists received $3 million for one-year of further study and concept refinement.

On January 4, 2017, Lucy and Psyche were selected as the 13th and 14th Discovery missions, respectively.

The deadline for proposals was February 16, 2015 and may have included some of the following mission candidates:


 * Saturn system
 * Enceladus Life Finder (ELF) — an astrobiology orbiter mission to assess Enceladus' habitability and search for biosignatures.
 * Journey to Enceladus and Titan (JET) — an astrobiology orbiter mission to assess Enceladus' habitability and search for biosignatures in the plumes.
 * Life Investigation For Enceladus (LIFE) — an astrobiology sample-return mission to assess Enceladus' habitability and search for biosignatures in a sample of a plume.


 * Jupiter system
 * Io Volcano Observer — a mission to explore Io's active volcanism and impact on the Jupiter system as a whole by measuring its global heat flow, its induced magnetic field, the temperature of its lava, and the composition of its atmosphere, volcanic plumes, and lavas.
 * Advanced Jovian Asteroid eXplorer (AJAX) — a mission to a single Jupiter trojan


 * Venus
 * Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI)− Atmospheric probe to Venus that would study the chemical composition of its atmosphere during a 63-minute descent. Selected as one of five finalists in September 2015.
 * Radar at Venus (RAVEN) - High-resolution mapping of Venus
 * Venus Atmosphere and Surface Explorer (VASE)— would measure the complete inventory of atmospheric noble gas and light stable isotopes and provide the first complete atmospheric structure profile from clouds to surface of temperature, pressure and wind.
 * Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR Topography and Spectroscopy (VERITAS)— Orbiter that would produce global, high resolution topography and imaging of Venus' surface and global surface composition. Selected as one of five finalists in September 2015.


 * Mars system
 * Mars-Moons Exploration, Reconnaissance and Landed Investigation (MERLIN) misson to flyby Deimos and then orbit and land on Phobos.
 * Phobos And Deimos Origin Assessment (PANDORA), to orbit Deimos and Phobos
 * Phobos And Deimos & Mars Environment (PADME)
 * Icebreaker Life would use the Phoenix/InSight platform but would carry a payload to search for past extraterrestrial life on Mars.


 * Asteroid, comet, and lunar proposals
 * Binary Asteroid in-situ Explorer (BASiX)— a mission to visit a binary asteroid and set off small explosions to see how they affect the movement of both objects.
 * Comet Radar Explorer (CORE)
 * Dark Asteroid Rendezvous (DARe)— a mission to visit up to nine asteroids using a spacecraft equipped with ion propulsion.
 * Lucy — would perform the first reconnaissance of the Jupiter trojan asteroids. Some possible reported targets would be 3548 Eurybates, 21900 Orus, 11351 Leucus, the binary 617 Patroclus with its companion Menoetius, and main-belt asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson. Selected as one of five finalists in September 2015.
 * Moon Age and Regolith Explorer (MARE)
 * NanoSWARM — CubeSat mission to study space weathering, lunar magnetism, lunar water and small-scale magnetospheres.
 * Near-Earth Object Camera (NEOCam)— is a space infrared telescope designed to survey the Solar System for potentially hazardous asteroids. Selected as one of five finalists in September 2015.
 * Proteus – mission to 238P/Read, a main-belt comet
 * Psyche — orbiter to 16 Psyche, the most massive metallic asteroid in the asteroid belt, thought to be exposed iron core of a protoplanet. Selected as one of five finalists in September 2015.
 * Kuiper Telescope — this would target multiple objects, including the giant planets, their satellites, and small bodies with a 1.2-meter diameter mirror space telescope placed at Earth L2 point.