MARS SCOUT MISSION DELAY
The next mission in the Mars Scout Program, originally planned for launch in 2011 is now targeted for 2013 as announced by NASA. The change is due to an organizational conflict of interest discovered in one of the mission proposal teams Phase A Concept Study. Opportunities to send spacecraft to mars occur only once every 26 months so this was the shortest delay for the mission possible.
Current proposals will be funded to meet a new launch date in 2013. By August 2008 revised proposals will be due and the evaluation and selection will take place in December, 2008. The Scout mission’s evaluation, selection, and announcement was postponed in November so the agency could resolve an organizational conflict of interest. Shortly after the concept study reports were received, the conflict was discovered NASA determined that because the extent of the conflict was severe enough, they felt its only recourse was to stop the evaluation and reconstitute the entire review panel that provides the technical and cost analysis for mission selections.
“The panel’s independent expertise and evaluation are critical to maintaining a fair and competitive mission selection process.” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington. “This was a difficult decision, but necessary to preserve the integrity of the process, while ensuring we have adequate resources for the mission we ultimately select.”
The delay in selection, resulting from reconstituting the entire review team and replanning the evaluation schedule, is approximately four months. Because of the delay, proposers would be left an unacceptable schedule, and schedule reserve, to meet a targeted launch date of 2011. Changing the launch date to the next Mars opportunity in 2013 re-establishes an acceptable and achievable schedule for the mission.
“We regret the delay, but NASA is taking this step to be pro-active in preventing problems early on”, said Mars Exploration Program Director Doug McCuistion, NASA Headquarter. “Because these are cost-capped missions, it is better to address the schedule risk now rather than put the winning proposer at a cost and schedule disadvantage from the start. Delaying the next Scout Mission and allowing the mission teams to replan their proposed missions for 2013 re-establishes an acceptable schedule to meet a Mars launch date. It will also reduce the risk of cost overruns driven by the tight mission schedule that would have resulted if launch had remained in 2011.”
Two missions for 2011, originally selected from 26 proposals for further evaluation in a concept study phase were found in the first round of the Mars Scout 2006. The selected missions were the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission or Moven & The Great Escape, or TGE, mission.
Designed to send a series of small, low-cost missions to the Red Planet that are competitively selected is the purpose of the Mars Scout Program. The first robotic spacecraft in the program is the Phoenix Lander, which was launched August 4, 2007 and is scheduled to land in the icy northern polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008. NASA’s Mars Exploration Program seeks to characterize and understand Mars as a dynamic system, including its present and past environment, climate cycles, geology and biological potential.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 7:13 am and is filed under Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
