|
Donnerstag, 31. Dezember 2009 um 00:00 Uhr |
|
NASA has selected three proposals as candidates for the agency's next space venture to another celestial body in our solar system under the "New Froniers" label. The final project to be selected in mid-2011 may provide a better understanding of Earth's formation or perhaps the origin of life on our planet. The proposed missions would probe the atmosphere and crust of Venus; return a piece of a near-Earth asteroid for analysis; or drop a robotic lander into a basin at the moon's south pole to return lunar rocks back to Earth for study.
NASA will select one proposal for full development after detailed mission concept studies are completed and reviewed. The studies begin during 2010, and the selected mission must be ready for launch no later than Dec. 30, 2018. Mission cost, excluding the launch vehicle, is limited to $650 million.
Each proposal team initially will receive approximately $3.3 million in 2010 to conduct a 12-month mission concept study that focuses on implementation feasibility, cost, management and technical plans. Studies also will include plans for educational outreach and small business opportunities. The final selection will become the third mission in the program. New Horizons launched in 2006, will fly by the Pluto-Charon system in 2015 then target another Kuiper Belt object for study. The second mission Juno is designed to orbit Jupiter from pole to pole for the first time and is slated for launch in August 2011. The three finalists for the 3rd mission are called Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer or SAGE (Venus), rigins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer or Osiris-Rex (asteroid) and MoonRise alias Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission.
You can find Daniel Fischers Cosmic Mirror here. |
