NASA's Beyond Einstein Program An Architecture for Implementation (2007) / Chapter Skim
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3 Mission Readiness and Cost Assessment
3 Mission Readiness and Cost Assessment
Pages 66-114
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From page 66... ...
Two specific criteria are used for the assessment: mission readiness and cost. The Committee on NASA's Beyond Einstein Program assessed mission readiness in terms of the technical and management readiness challenges faced by the five Beyond Einstein mission areas.
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The committee decided to keep the same lists as those of the mission teams. In a few cases there was insufficient information to do a complete assessment of a particular mission concept within a mission area.
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From page 68... ...
In order to provide a realistic expectation of the cost range for various Beyond Einstein mission classes, the independent estimates and the mission team's own proposed plans were considered. The committee also assessed life-cycle costs and potential funding profiles against the available NASA Beyond Einstein funding wedge and non-NASA budget contributions as part of the considerations in making its recommendations.
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From page 69... ...
is available, and the mission team considered it, but the Burle Planacon was chosen because it has the potential to be more rugged. The CASTER RFI also states: "A program to fabricate and test .
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From page 70... ...
CASTER Technical Margins The CASTER mission concept is still in an early conceptual stage, with only notional estimates for size, weight, power, and other performance parameters, making it difficult to thoroughly assess the margins of the proposed design. It is clear, however, that the CASTER mission will require a very heavy instrument and spacecraft.
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The CASTER mission schedule shows launch 4.5 years after the preliminary design review (PDR) , which is tight even if progress is made by the mission in raising the TRLs of the elements listed in Table 3.1.
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From page 72... ...
The technology readiness for EXIST is illustrated in Table 3.3. TABLE 3.3 EXIST Technology Readiness Summary Heritage TRL DoD Changes from Previous Project Committee Committee Element Mission Similarities Mission/Comment Rating Rating Rating High-energy ProtoEXIST Basic design, Coded mask telescopes and shielding: 5-6 3-4 II detectors imager -- materials components demonstrated in laboratory; (19 telescopes)
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From page 73... ...
EXIST Technical Challenges: Operations EXIST is a full-sky imaging mission performing a survey in the 10-600 keV and the 3-30 keV energy range every 90 minutes. The HET and LET are composed of 19 and 32 TABLE 3.4 EXIST Spacecraft Accommodation Requirements System Subsystem Performance Requirements Impact Attitude determination and control Pointing 1 arcmin control No challenge 5 arcsec knowledge Tracking 15° nodding Unknown Jitter ~15° nodding scan No challenge Power Orbital average 1,912 W payload with 30% contingency Drives array size 957 W bus with 9% contingency 2,869 W with 22.1% contingency Worst case 1,912 W Array size Data Storage -- 18 GB Cost Structure Payload 6,339 kg/20% contingency Size, cost Bus 2,451 kg dry mass Size, cost Total/margin 9,709 total wet mass/3,191, 32.7 on Atlas 551 Appears satisfactory; good margin but expensive expendable launch vehicle.
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From page 74... ...
EXIST Technical Margins The proposed EXIST spacecraft is in the conceptual stage, with some basic design trade studies completed. The EXIST mission concept appears to have good technical margins for size, weight, power, and other performance parameters, consistent with the maturity of the overall system concept.
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of 4He to achieve lower for JWST operating temperatures. Joint development effort with JWST and TPF: three alternatives being pursued.
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The mission team argues that the SXT design is based on materials that are highly reflective (iridium) and that the wedge mandrels are producible and readily procured.
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According to the mission team, the FMA defines the critical path of the project. The assembly will be designed, fabricated, and assembled by industry through a competitive procurement.
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. The mission team states that a major benchmark for the XMS was the flight of the Suzaku observatory in 2005.
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No overall mission development schedule was provided. Since the spacecraft bus is well within the state of the art, it seems reasonable to assume that the mission critical path will be through the SXT and associated detector assembly.
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Since TABLE 3.10 CIP Technology Readiness Summary Heritage TRL DoD Changes from Previous Committee Committee Element Mission Similarities Mission/Comment Project Rating Rating Rating Detectors JWST/ Basic Uses 8k × 8k Teledyne Hawaii- 6 (at completion 4 I-II NIRSpec, design and 2RG HgCdTe detectors. CIP of noise NIRCAM, construction will operate at a warmer characterization)
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CIP Technical Margins The CIP mission team provided a complete package of information that addressed each of the major technical areas. The team allocated adequate technical margins in most areas but did not provide margins for attitude control and data link.
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From page 82... ...
Not much was presented to the committee by way of spacecraft accommodation information. TABLE 3.12 CMBPol Technology Readiness Summary Heritage TRL DoD Changes from Previous Project Committee Committee Element Mission Similarities Mission/Comment Rating Rating Rating Cryocooler Unknown, but refers Unknown Unknown Not Not enough Not enough to a pulse tube provided information information cooler developed by to assess to assess Lockheed Martin.
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From page 83... ...
CMBPol Management Challenges CMBPol was presented as a mission concept only; no detailed schedule was made available. The mission team is led by a principal investigator at NASA GSFC, with team members from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, Princeton University, Harvard University, the University of Toronto, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
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From page 84... ...
Liquid helium Spitzer, ISO, Based on Spitzer Not enough information 9 >6 N/A cryostat Herschel design provided, but likely close enough to Spitzer design to make this low risk. Sub-K cooler: Suzaku Project documentation Little information 9 >6 N/A single-shot ADR indicates that this is provided.
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From page 85... ...
The low data rate requirement is a plus in reducing complexity. TABLE 3.15 EPIC-F Spacecraft Accommodation Requirements System Subsystem Performance Requirements Impact Attitude determination and Pointing 1° control, 30 arcsec knowledge No challenge control Tracking None Not applicable Jitter Stability of spin axis assumed to be No challenge 1° Power -- 272 W payload with 43% contingency GaAs triple junction cells, good margins.
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mission team is proposing corrugated horn antennas similar to those flown on the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)
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Spacecraft accommodation requirements for the EPIC-I mission are listed in Table 3.17. EPIC-I Technical Challenges: Operations The EPIC-I mission team provided very little information concerning flight operations.
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EPIC-I Technical Margins The EPIC-I concept appears to have adequate technical margins. Mass margin, in particular, is more than adequate at 184 percent, given the use of the Atlas 401 launch vehicle (under the assumption that the Delta II will not be available)
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The technology readiness of the ADEPT mission is summarized in Table 3.18. The mission team states that it will be using a Hawaii HgCdTe 2k × 2k infrared detector sensor.
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DESTINY Mission DESTINY Technical Challenges: Instrument The only identified challenges in the Dark Energy Space Telescope (DESTINY) technologies are in the precision pointing and stabilization, identified by the mission team as challenges.
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DESTINY Technical Margins The DESTINY mission concept proposed had adequate technical margins for size, weight, power, and other performance parameters, with the exception of pointing stability and control, where it is unclear whether the proposed concept will perform adequately. Specifically, there are concerns with jitter from propellant slosh and other systematics that could present a problem for pointing repeatability.
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The size of the team is not particularly large and should be manageable with established management processes. The mission team provided very little schedule information.
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Focal plane JWST/ Optical layout, Requires l/dl = 70-100 resolving 6 4-5 II plate NIRSpec materials power over the 0.4 to 1.7 micron Spitzer band-pass to measure the SiII line to +400 km/s. Prism-based design.
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From page 94... ...
Therefore, the committee rated it at a TRL of 4-5 rather than the 6 given by the mission team. It appears that the mission team has researched the development effort and that the materials and engineering processes should be available for the development effort, so the committee rated the DoD at II.
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Observing targets will be selected and command sets uploaded periodically to schedule pointing and observing time for specific targets. SNAP Technical Margins The SNAP mission team provided significant detail on its proposed concept and showed adequate technical margins in all areas.
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The LISA Pathfinder is on track to launch in late 2009, with 70 percent of the hardware to be delivered in 2007. The assessed TRL and DoD levels for the key technologies to be demonstrated by the LISA Pathfinder are shown in Table 3.24, which contains a summary of LISA technology readiness issues.
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DRS control GPB; LISA Pathfinder will Simulations have 6 5 II-III laws LISA demonstrate functionality. demonstrated that DRS Pathfinder controls can be implemented for LISA, and LISA Pathfinder will demonstrate the required technology.
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While the operations of LISA have been very carefully considered and advanced plans are thorough and reasonable, this type of space operation has never been done before. LISA Technical Margins The LISA project has completed numerous detailed engineering studies to back up the design and had adequate technical margins in all areas, except with the micronewton thruster performance and lifetime.
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Drives array area but can be met with standard GaAs 381 W spacecraft bus cell technology. Worst case 766 W, 30% contingency No challenge Data storage -- Approximately 32 MB No challenge Structure Bus 314 kg Only leaves 271 kg total mass margin on Atlas V 531.
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assess the Beyond Einstein mission areas and recommend one for first launch and development. To ensure cost realism, the NRC's Space Studies Board and Board on Physics and Astronomy, in consultation with NASA and DOE, identified the need for independent cost and schedule realism assessments for the 11 Beyond Einstein mission concepts.
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An implicit assumption is that the proposed concepts are feasible. As the Beyond Einstein mission concepts are at significantly different levels of definition, technology readiness, and development, the independent estimates involved normalizing these disparities to provide a common basis of comparison.
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The complexity indices are plotted versus cost and schedule to show overall trends and a range of cost and schedule. The mission team estimates (as available)
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. Results Mission Concept Cost Estimates Table 3.26 provides a summary of the independent cost estimates for the 11 Beyond Einstein mission concepts assessed by the committee.
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1,409 1,600? 1,611 1,810 1,282 5,882 (provided by the mission teams)
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: This row represents the life cycle costs as estimated by the mission teams themselves and briefed to the committee. It is included as a comparison to the independent Phase C/D/E estimate in row 6.
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is above and beyond the development cost numbers noted above. Budget Analysis Once the cost and schedule estimates of each individual Beyond Einstein mission were completed, the costs were time-phased against the required schedule span.
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For the budget analysis, the committee compared the time-phased cost of various missions to NASA with the available NASA budget. Figure 3.5 shows the 11 Beyond Einstein mission concepts with their nominal time lines shown in comparison against the funding wedge.
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NOTE: Acronyms are defined in Appendix G 700 3-3 600 500 Millions of Real-Year Dollars "Reasonable" exponential dampened growth 400 Inflation only after FY17 300 200 100 NASA budget through FY12 0 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10 FY11 FY12 FY13 FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19 FY20 FY21 FY22 FY23 FY24 FY25 Fiscal Year FIGURE 3.4 NASA's assumed Beyond Einstein funding wedge, FY 2006-FY 2025.
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From page 109... ...
The assessment of the five Beyond Einstein mission areas is necessarily comparative. Three specific criteria are used for the assessment: technical readiness, management readiness, and cost realism: • Technical readiness elements are the instrument, spacecraft, operations, and technical margins; • Management readiness elements include team organization, schedule, and other special challenges; and • Cost realism was done as an independent estimation of the probable cost.
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From page 110... ...
Although significant detailed planning for the FMA has been performed, it is not obvious how much of this planning and the experience of the Con-X mission team members will transfer to the contractor that will be selected to produce the FMA. The SXT instrument, and therefore mission success, depends on the availability of the X-Ray Microcalorimeter Spectrometer.
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From page 111... ...
Inflation Probes CIP The Cosmic Inflation Probe mission team provided a complete description of its proposed implementation and, in general, makes use of available technologies or technologies being developed for other programs. There are no serious technology readiness issues for CIP, although work remains to be done to determine whether the detector noise figure is adequate at the planned higher operating temperature.
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From page 112... ...
Joint Dark Energy Missions ADEPT The Advanced Dark Energy Physics Telescope mission team provided insufficient information for the committee to adequately evaluate the technical readiness of the proposed mission. The mission will be based on technologies developed for missions such as Swift and the commercial GeoEye imaging spacecraft.
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Not all of these criteria were discussed by the individual mission teams. A summary of the key points that were presented by the mission teams is included here.
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As one option, the committee assessed funding profiles against the available NASA funding wedge, taking into account non-NASA budget contributions. While the Beyond Einstein funding wedge is inadequate to develop any Beyond Einstein mission on its nominal schedule, contributions from non-NASA partners, as is the case for JDEM and LISA, could alleviate budget stresses but would require additional management, commitments, and coordination.
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