SPACE SCIENCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (SScAC) MEETING

Cocoa Beach, Florida

December 5-6, 2001

Letter to Associate Administrator Dr. Edward Weiler from Dr. Steven Squyres, Chair of SScAC

Dear Ed:

The Space Science Advisory Committee (SScAC) met in Cocoa Beach on December 5-6, 2001. This letter summarizes the findings and recommendations from our meeting.

I would like to begin our remarks by offering SScAC’s warmest wishes to George Withbroe, who will be retiring from NASA at the end of January. George has provided truly visionary leadership to the Sun-Earth Connection Theme over a full solar cycle (1991-2002). Under his thoughtful and caring guidance, Sun-Earth Connections emerged from a portfolio of separate and sometimes divergent sub-fields into the robust, broad-based program that it is today. He essentially invented, almost single-handedly sold, and led the early development of the Living With a Star program. George’s dedicated contributions to the SEC Theme and to NASA’s overall space science program will be sorely missed. On behalf of the entire space science community, we express our deepest thanks to George, and we wish him all the best in his life after NASA.

Code S Technology Program

One of the highlights of our meeting was a content-rich series of presentations on technology development within Code S. We greatly appreciated these presentations, and the clarity that they helped to bring to our understanding of this very important topic.

Based on the presentations we heard, we understand that each division acts largely autonomously to plan and execute technology development programs for their missions. Although there are a number of areas where no support currently exists for needed development, by and large it appears that technology development within the divisions is well understood. Indeed, we received glimpses of a number of exciting and important technology development programs currently underway.

Our primary concern is that coordination of technology development among divisions, across enterprises, or outside of NASA appears to be ineffective. A number of technologies appear in the critical paths of most or all of the divisions, but we saw little coordination among separate and parallel development programs. Similarly, technology areas under development in Code S programs (such as automatic rendezvous) parallel efforts underway in other federal and in international organizations; it is not clear how much coordination is taking place in these complementary efforts.

Of particular concern is the fact that there is no apparent connection between Space Science technology needs and the work being performed under the considerable resources of Code R. The way Code R chooses technology topics was described to us as being done in an “unpredictable, erratic, uncoordinated, and not particularly useful way.” A number of high return space science technology areas, currently at low TRL, could and should be beneficially and logically supported by Code R.

As an outcome of the apparently limited coordination among divisions, we have concerns about the process within OSS by which enterprise-wide technology priorities are set, and the consistency with which technology development decisions are related to the needs of the strategic plan. We were also concerned to hear of development programs that have been interrupted by loss of funding or by unilateral decisions of Code R to redirect co-funding. It is critical that development initiatives that continue to make good

technical progress be protected from the vagaries of the budget to the greatest extent possible.

As technology programs progress to higher TRLs, it is essential to take them through flight demonstrations to make them “eligible” for inclusion in flight programs. The only current path for this to occur is the New Millennium program, which is limited in flight opportunities and is based on a small set of technologies. The method used to select this limited set of technologies was only presented in a cursory and informal way, and it was not clear to us that the New Millennium technology decision process is properly aligned with the priorities of the Code S strategic plan. This topic could perhaps be addressed at a future SScAC meeting.

Code S R&A funding is openly competed in an exemplary way, and produces significant technology as well as science. However, we also note that Code S has a less exemplary record for open competition in much of its technology development outside of R&A. For example, it was noted that a four-year hiatus has taken place since the last NASA research announcement addressing generic OSS-relevant technology development. It is essential for the health of the technology development community that regular opportunities exist for openly competed research support.

In summary, given the lack of evident coordination across OSS divisions, among enterprises, and with the outside community, we remain concerned about whether or not OSS (and, indeed, NASA) is pursuing the best portfolio of new innovation and appropriate evolutionary technology development for near- and long-term Space Science objectives. We would find it useful at a future meeting for Code R to brief us on their technology development program, and how it supports the needs of the Code S strategic plan.

Mars Exploration Program

Mars Exploration Program Director Orlando Figueroa briefed us on the current state of the Mars Program. He told us that he will interact with two key groups: the Mars Exploration Program Assessment Group (MEPAG), and the new Mars Exploration Review Team (MERT). These two groups and Orlando’s plan for interacting with them are fully responsive to our past recommendations on this issue. We also noted with approval the establishment of a Mars Fundamental Research and Analysis Program with a planned goal to increase its funding to about 2% of the Mars Exploration Program budget.

Concerning the missions in the 2001-2005 timeframe, most of our discussion dealt with the 2003 Mars Exploration Rover mission. Because of my involvement in that mission, Mike Drake chaired that portion of our meeting, and authored the comment below:

Considerable concern was expressed about the critical decisions that need to be made over the next few months. During the discussion Orlando Figueroa reviewed some of the decision points and pointed to examples of the metrics he would use to make decisions to delay one or both landers, cancel a lander. etc. He argued that the decision making process was complex and that premature decisions should not be made. The SScAC remains concerned that this complex mission remains challenging in most of its aspects.

After 2005, the direction of the Mars program becomes less clear. We note with concern that there appears to be a growing division within the Mars community between scientists seeking early Mars Sample Return and those who believe it is best to delay it. MSR is currently scheduled to begin with an FY’11 launch, but schedule pressures and other issues could force it to a later date. A decision concerning the nature of the ’07 Mars Smart Lander mission will follow logically from the extent to which it functions as a near-term enabling mission for MSR. We believe that removal of the uncertainty over when Mars Sample Return will occur will help reunite the Mars community and provide focused support for Mars exploration. We directed the SSES to discuss the Mars Program at its February 2002 meeting and to report to SScAC in March.

A technology program for Mars is critical to enabling future Mars missions. In order to assure appropriate program content, all participants in Mars exploration must have some say in its definition. We recommend that all stakeholders in the Mars Exploration Program, including JPL, NASA-ARC, NASA-JSC, PIs on Scout missions, and advisory groups for sample curation, participate in recommending Mars technology priorities to NASA HQ.

In-Space Propulsion

Colleen Hartman briefed us on Code S’s efforts to develop a significant In-Space Propulsion (ISP) capability. ISP is of enormous interest to several future missions in both the Solar System Exploration and Sun-Earth Connection themes. At our most recent meeting, we recommended that ISP priorities be established with inputs from all the Code S themes, with the aim of benefiting all the themes. Colleen described the current priorities for ISP technology studies after her FY02 budget was cut from $32M to $19M by a congressional earmark. Four technologies (Aerocapture, Next Generation Ion Thrusters, Nuclear Electric Propulsion, and Solar Sails) are judged to be of highest priority and will be funded by an NRA to be released in January. We were very pleased to see Solar Sails – the highest priority ISP technology for the Sun-Earth Connection Theme – given equal priority to the technologies highly prized by the Solar System Exploration Theme. We take this as evidence of an appropriately balanced approach to developing ISP technologies, and we commend Code S for it.

Information Security and Data Quality

Lee Holcomb, NASA’s Chief Information Officer, joined us via teleconference and briefed us on the status of the Information Technology (IT) Security Clause, and on upcoming issues related to data quality guidelines.

Lee reported that since the revised Information Security guidelines have gone into effect, 80% of the contracts affected by these guidelines have now been signed. We are grateful to him for working with the universities and other organizations to implement these guidelines in a fair and effective manner.

We also heard from Lee about new guidelines that are under consideration for the purpose of ensuring the quality of data products resulting from NASA-funded contracts. In the course of this discussion it was pointed out that the space science community already has in place a peer review system that has proven to be very successful in ensuring the quality of scientific publications. We suggest that this system can serve as a model for new efforts to ensure NASA data quality, and that no further actions are needed to assure the quality of data from OSS missions. We also endorse the suggestion that a draft of new guidelines in this area, if any, could be brought to the SScAC for comment. In addition, we strongly urge that if any new data quality guidelines are produced, they be adequately publicized within the scientific community before they are implemented so that investigators that are affected have sufficient opportunity to comment.

SOMO/CSOC

We heard briefly from Guenter Riegler about recent developments concerning SOMO and CSOC. Despite the financial impacts, we were very glad to hear that the portion of CSOC that is of relevance to Code S will now be managed by Code S.

Government Performance and Results Act

As we have done at past meetings, we helped assess the extent to which Code S has met its GPRA-related goals in the past fiscal year. Our scores have been reported separately to the NASA Advisory Council, and I will not repeat them here. But there are two points worth making. One is that it was a very good year for Space Science! The other is that Code S is extraordinarily well served in its substantial GPRA-related work by the efforts of Marc Allen and, especially, Jennifer Kearns.

Core Competence at JPL and NASA Centers

Finally, we had a long discussion of the importance of maintaining unique capabilities at the two key Code S field centers, JPL and Goddard. We strongly support the idea of maintaining such capabilities, since they are crucial to the nation’s space science program. In particular, we note the important role of these centers in supplying basic capabilities to the science community in support of small teams and universities that would not otherwise have access to such capabilities.

Much of the maintenance of core capabilities at the field centers comes about as a consequence of the centers’ successes in the competitive peer review process. As we have done in the past, we applaud Code S for the large fraction of its program that is openly competed.

Where we were unable to reach a consensus was on the best way of assuring maintenance of these capabilities. Some of us felt that peer review and competition is the best way to award all missions, including all missions to the field centers. Others among us felt that there is considerable merit in having Code S direct a small number of the most technically challenging missions to the field centers to help them maintain their cutting-edge capabilities. This may be a productive topic for future deliberations within SScAC.

To end this letter on a personal note, Ed, our meeting on Cocoa Beach was my last one as SScAC Chair. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to be able to serve NASA in this role for the last three years, and I thank you for the opportunity. I am delighted that you have chosen Andy Christensen as the next SScAC Chair. I know I am leaving the committee in good hands!

Best wishes,

Steve Squyres

Chair, SScAC

cc: SScAC

M. Allen

J. Alexander

O. Figueroa

G. Withbroe

C. Hartman

A. Kinney

H. Thronson

A. Christensen

J. Kearns