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1 Overview and Top-Level Findings and Recommendations
Pages 6-14

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From page 6...
... BACKGROUND The New Frontiers Program was created by NASA as a direct result of the recommendations made in the 2003 National Research Council (NRC) report New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy. That report, referred to as the solar system exploration decadal survey, established science priorities for the period 2003-2013.
From page 7...
... The decadal survey recommended five mission candidates and ranked them according to priority: • Kuiper Belt Pluto Explorer, • South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return, • Jupiter Polar Orbiter with Probes, • Venus In Situ Explorer, and • Comet Surface Sample Return. To date there have been two New Frontiers missions selectedthe New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt and the Juno mission to orbit Jupiter.
From page 8...
... An extended mission, if funded, will enable New Horizons to encounter one or more additional Kuiper Belt objects sometime before the mid-2020s. The success of the New Horizons mission demonstrates the feasibility of principal-investigator-led missions and RTG-powered missions in the New Frontiers mission class.
From page 9...
... New Frontiers is a strategic component of the planetary flight program, and the first recommendation is intended to ensure that the announcement of opportunity will be based on the mission science priorities from the decadal survey and that the strategic nature of the New Frontiers Program is maintained. Recommendation 1: In drafting the rules for the next New Frontiers announcement of opportunity, NASA should emphasize the science objectives and questions to be addressed, and not specify measurements or techniques for the implementation.
From page 10...
... Because data related to near-planet, high-latitude magnetic field structure are needed to understand basic magnetospheric processes, the solar and space physics community assigned a Jupiter polar orbiter a high priority. 1 National Research Council, New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2003; National Research Council, Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2001; and National Research Council, The Sun to the Earthand Beyond: A Decadal Research Strategy in Solar and Space Physics, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2003.
From page 11...
... Recommendation 2: NASA should expand the list of potential missions in the next New Frontiers announcement of opportunity to include the three remaining candidate missions -- South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return, Venus In Situ Explorer, and Comet Surface Sample Return -- and also the five additional mediumsize missions mentioned in the decadal survey: Network Science, Trojan/Centaur Reconnaissance, Asteroid Rover/Sample Return, Io Observer, and Ganymede Observer. There is no recommended priority for these missions.
From page 12...
... The committee was wary of making any Mars mission recommendations that could potentially upset the Mars Exploration Program, which it considers to be a carefully planned, integrated, and highly successful program to date. The committee concluded that the prominence of a Network Science mission in the New Frontiers line and the Mars Network mission in the Mars section of the decadal survey clearly warrants the inclusion of a Network Science mission in the next New Frontiers announcement of opportunity.
From page 13...
... OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEW SCIENCE The committee acknowledges that scientific developments since 2002 require some reinterpretation of the New Frontiers Program's goals. New technological developments have also occurred in that time.
From page 14...
... As with any New Frontiers mission, these proposals must offer the potential to dramatically advance fundamental scientific goals of the decadal survey and should accomplish scientific investigations well beyond the scope of the smaller Discovery Program. Both missionenabling technological advances or novel applications of current technology could be considered.


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