Space Studies Board Annual Report 2012 (2013) / Chapter Skim
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5 Summaries of Major Reports
5 Summaries of Major Reports
Pages 35-76
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. Reports are often written in conjunction with other National Research Council boards, including the A eronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB)
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Participation in Euclid Executive Summary NASA has proposed to make a hardware contribution to the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Euclid mission in exchange for U.S.
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report Preventing the Forward Contamination of Europa3 recommended that spacecraft missions to Europa must have their bioload reduced by such an amount that the probability of contaminating a Europan ocean with a single viable terrestrial organism at any time in the future should be less than 10–4 per mission.4 This criterion was adopted for consistency with prior recommendations by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) of the International Council for Science for "any spacecraft intended for planetary landing or atmospheric penetration."5 COSPAR, the de facto adjudicator of planetary protection regulations, adopted the criterion for Europa, and subsequent COSPAR-sponsored workshops extended the 10–4 criterion to other icy bodies of the outer solar system.6,7 In practice, the establishment of a valid forward-contamination-risk goal as a mission requirement implies the use of some method -- either a test or analysis -- to verify that the mission can achieve the stated goal.
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7. Minimal planetary protection -- Do current data indicate that heat treatment of the spacecraft at 60°C for 5 hours will eliminate all physiological groups that can propagate on the target body?
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Small Solar System Bodies, European Space Policy Institute, Vienna, Austria, 2009. 7 COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection, COSPAR Workshop on Planetary Protection for Titan and Ganymede, .
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Although its budgets have never risen to the levels assumed in the survey, NASA's Earth Science Division (ESD) has made major investments toward the missions recommended by the survey and has realized important technological and scientific progress as a result.
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Using agency estimates for the anticipated remaining lifetime of in-orbit missions and counting new missions formally approved in their enacted budgets, the committee found that the resulting number of NASA and NOAA Earth observing instruments in space by 2020 could be as little as 25 percent of the current number (Figure S.1) .4 This precipitous decline in the quantity of Earth science and appli cations observations from space undertaken by the United States reinforces the conclusion in the 2007 decadal survey and its predecessor, the 2005 interim report, which declared that the U.S.
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SOURCE: NASA and NOAA data. The committee concluded that in the near term, budgets for NASA's Earth science program will remain incommensurate with programmatic needs.
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, would draw its membership from the scientists and engineers involved in the definition and execution of survey missions as well as the nation's scientific and engineering talent more broadly. (The Payload Advisory Panel was composed of the EOS Interdisciplinary Science Investigation principal investigators and was formally charged with examining and recommending EOS payloads to NASA based on the scientific requirements and priorities established by the Earth science community at large.
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From page 44... ...
, hosted payloads, small satellites, the International Space Station, and flight formations (for example, the Afternoon Constellation, or "A-Train") provide NASA with a diverse portfolio 9National Research Council, Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond, 2007, p.
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STATUS OF PROGRAM ELEMENTS IN NASA'S EARTH SCIENCE PROGRAM In its assessment of NASA's Earth science program, the committee examined the major individual programmatic elements within NASA's ESD and also considered the overall program's effectiveness in realizing the bjectives o of the 2007 decadal survey.14 In particular, the committee reviewed the following program elements and also commented on NASA's Climate Continuity missions. The program elements described in this summary are elaborated on in Chapter 2, where they are listed in the same order as they are here: • Extended missions -- missions whose operations have been extended beyond their nominal lifetime; • Missions in the pre-decadal survey queue -- missions that the decadal survey assumed would be launched as precursors to the decadal survey missions; • Decadal survey missions -- new missions recommended by the 2007 decadal survey; • Climate Continuity missions; • Earth Venture missions -- a class of smaller missions recommended by the decadal survey; • Applied Sciences Program; • Suborbital (Earth Science)
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From page 46... ...
. Climate Continuity Missions To balance executive branch and congressional priorities with the community guidance set forth in the decadal survey, the NASA Earth science program issued the report Responding to the Challenge of Climate and Environmental Change: NASA's Plan for a Climate-Centric Architecture for Earth Observations and Applications from Space,16 which convolves decadal survey and administration priorities to take advantage of new funds made available by the executive branch to accelerate its priorities.
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ocean biogeochemistry LIST Land surface topography for landslide 2016-2020 None Formulation (Lidar Surface Topography) hazards and water runoff (Pre-Phase A)
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The committee was informed at its first meeting on April 28, 2011, by the director of NASA's Earth Science Division, Michael Freilich, that these plans are now on hold because the fiscal year 2012 budget request does not fund mission implementation; no new target launch dates are available for these missions. cMission planned for launch by end of 2019 per NASA, Responding to the Challenge of Climate and Environmental Change (2010)
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Technology Development Within NASA ESD is the NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) , which is responsible for promoting the development of technology required to make the decadal survey missions flight ready.
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LOOKING AHEAD: BEYOND 2020 In preparation for the next decadal survey, the committee offers in Chapter 5 a summary of "lessons learned" that are derived from its evaluation of implementation of the current decadal survey programs. In particular, regardless of how future NASA Earth science programs evolve, the committee concluded that: 1. Maintaining a long-term vision with a fixed and predictable mission queue is essential to building a consensus in a diverse Earth science community that prior to the 2007 decadal survey had not come to a consensus on research priorities spanning conventional disciplinary boundaries.
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1 G Kopp, LASP, University of Colorado, "Overview and Advances in Solar Radiometry for Climate Studies," presentation at the Workshop on the Effects of Solar Variability on Earth's Climate, September 8, 2011.
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Yet they also emphasized that there may be an emerging pattern of paleoclimate change coincident with periods of solar activity and inactivity, but only on long timescales of multiple decades to millennia. Several speakers discussed the effects of particle events and cosmic-ray variability.
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NASA now faces major challenges in nearly all of its primary endeavors -- human spaceflight, Earth and space science, and aeronautics. While the agency has undertaken new efforts to procure commercial transportation to resupply the International Space Station (ISS)
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Rising costs associated with increasingly complex missions, declining science budgets, international partnerships that fell apart, and mission cost overruns have strained science budgets to their breaking point. As a result, key decadal priorities in astrophysics, planetary science, and Earth science will not be
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Last, flat budgets historically have not allowed NASA to pursue major initiatives in human spaceflight; see Figures 1.4 and 1.5, where the budget bumps for Apollo and the space shuttle/ISS programs are apparent. NASA cannot execute a robust, balanced aeronautics and space program given the current budget constraints.
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This would require reducing or eliminating one or more of NASA's current portfolio elements (human exploration, Earth and space science, aeronautics, and space technology) in favor of the remaining elements.
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Today it is common to declare that all future human spaceflight or large-scale Earth and space science projects will be international.
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2007. Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond.
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RECENT PROGRESS: SIGNIFICANT ADVANCES FROM THE PAST DECADE As summarized in Chapter 3 and discussed in greater detail in Chapters 8-10, the disciplines of solar and space physics have made remarkable advances over the last decade -- many of which have come from the implementation of the program recommended in the 2003 solar and space physics decadal survey.1 Listed below are some of the highlights from an exciting decade of discovery: • New insights, gained from novel observations and advances in theory, modeling, and computation, into the variability of the mechanisms that generate the Sun's magnetic field, and into the structure of that field; • A new understanding of the unexpectedly deep minimum in solar activity; • Significant progress in understanding the origin and evolution of the solar wind; • Striking advances in understanding both explosive solar flares and the coronal mass ejections that drive space weather; • Groundbreaking discoveries about the surprising nature of the boundary between the heliosphere -- that is, the immense magnetic bubble containing our solar system -- and the surrounding interstellar medium; • New imaging methods that permit researchers to directly observe space weather-driven changes in the particles and magnetic fields surrounding Earth; • Significantly deeper knowledge of the numerous processes involved in the acceleration and loss of particles in Earth's radiation belts; • Major advances in understanding the structure, dynamics, and linkages in other planetary magnetospheres, especially those of Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn; • New understanding of how oxygen from Earth's own atmosphere contributes to space storms; NOTE: "Summary" reprinted from the prepublication version of Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., released on August 15, 2012, pp.
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GUIDING PRINCIPLES AND PROGRAMMATIC CHALLENGES To achieve these science goals, the survey committee recommends adherence to the following principles (Chapter 1) : • To make transformational scientific progress, the Sun, Earth, and heliosphere must be studied as a coupled system; • To understand the coupled system requires that each subdiscipline be able to make measurable advances in achieving its key science goals; and • Success across the entire field requires that the various elements of solar and space physics research p rograms -- the enabling foundation comprising theory, modeling, data analysis, innovation, and education, as well as ground-based facilities and small-, medium-, and large-class space missions -- be deployed with careful attention both to the mix of assets and to the schedule (cadence)
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. The evolving HSO lies at the heart of TABLE S.1 Summary of Top-Level Decadal Survey Research Recommendations Priority Recommendation NASA NSF Other 0.0 Complete the current program X X 1.0 Implement the DRIVE initiative X X X Small satellites; mid-scale NSF projects; vigorous ATST and synoptic program support; science centers and grant programs; instrument development 2.0 Accelerate and expand the Heliophysics Explorer program X Enable MIDEX line and Missions of Opportunity 3.0 Restructure STP as a moderate-scale, PI-led line X 3.1 Implement an IMAP-Like Mission X 3.2 Implement a DYNAMIC-Like Mission X 3.3 Implement a MEDICI-Like Mission X 4.0 Implement a large LWS GDC-like mission X TABLE S.2 Summary of Top Level Decadal Survey Applications Recommendations Priority Recommendation NASA NSF Other 1.0 Recharter the National Space Weather Program X X X 2.0 Work in a multi-agency partnership for solar and solar wind observations X X X 2.1 Continuous solar wind observations from L1 (DSCOVR, IMAP)
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, a mobile facility used to study the upper atmosphere and to observe space weather events, and the initial development of the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) , a 4-meter-aperture optical solar telescope -- by far the largest in the world -- that will provide the most highly resolved measurements ever obtained of the Sun's plasma and magnetic field.
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3The survey committee assumes inflation at 2.7 percent in program costs, the same as the percentage used by NASA for new starts. 4National Research Council, Solar and Space Physics and Its Role in Space Exploration, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2003, p.
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The mission implementation also requires measurements of the critical solar wind inputs to the terrestrial system. R3.2 The second STP science target is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the variability in space weather driven by lower-atmosphere weather on Earth.
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A 2.5 Distinct funding lines for basic space physics research and for space weather specification and forecasting need to be developed and maintained. 6Committee for Space Weather, Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research, National Space Weather Program Strategic Plan, FCM-P30-2010, August 17, 2010, available at http://www.ofcm.gov/nswp-sp/fcm-p30.htm.
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However, the survey committee recognizes that the already tightly constrained program could face further budgetary challenges. For example, with launch planned in 2018, the Solar Probe Plus project has not yet entered the implementation phase when expenditures are highest.7 Significant cost growth in this very important, but technically challenging, mission beyond the current cap has the potential to disrupt the overall NASA heliophysics program.
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Through 2016 the program content is tightly constrained by budgetary limits and fully committed for executing existing program elements. The red dashed "Enabling Budget" line includes a modest increase from the baseline budget starting in 2017, allowing implementation of the survey-recommended program at a more efficient cadence that better meets scientific and societal needs and improves optimization of the mix of small and large missions.
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The 4-meter Advanced Technology Solar Telescope will resolve structures as small as 20 km, 1, 4 measuring the dynamics of the magnetic field at the solar surface down to the fundamental density length scale and in the low corona. The Heliophysics Systems Observatory will gather a broad range of ground- and space-based All observations and advance increasingly interdisciplinary and long-term solar and space physics science objectives.
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The NASA model in current use was last updated in 2005, and the proposed model would incorporate recent research directed at improving the quantification and understanding of the health risks posed by the space radiation environment. NASA's proposed model is defined by the 2011 NASA report Space Radiation Cancer Risk Projections and Uncertainties -- 2010 (Cucinotta et al., 2011)
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Possible improvements to components of the model and to the integrated model are provided, together with recommendations for addressing gaps in the model. In some cases, specific research is identified that could help NASA address gaps and/or uncertainties in its proposed model for cancer risk projections.
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Recommendation: Because there are some deviations in NASA's proposed model from the weights recom mended by BEIR VII for the excess relative risk and excess absolute risk models, the committee recommends that NASA provide additional justification for these alternative weights. Dose and Dose Rate Effectiveness Factor A dose and dose rate effectiveness factor (DDREF)
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Uncertainties in Low-LET Cancer Risk Model and Overall Uncertainties in Cancer Risk Projections for High-LET Exposures The 2011 NASA report addresses risk estimates and their uncertainties associated with exposure to low-LET radiation. Uncertainties are important because risk protection involves the use of safety factors, and NASA sets radiation permissible exposure limits (PELs)
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to match the estimated risks to the various tissues in representative space radiation environments. NASA proposes to use this as a summary quantity for mission operational purposes and, in NASA's proposed model, it is simply termed "effective dose." Effective dose is, strictly speaking, a quantity defined by ICRP that includes the ICRP-defined specification of numerical values for weighting
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Conclusion: There are conflicting reports on the generality of the phenomenon of radiation-induced delayed genomic instability and some question about variation in the susceptibilities of cells from different individuals with regard to this effect. Thus, the committee concludes that it is appropriate that genomic instability not be incorporated into NASA's proposed model, in agreement with the proposed NASA approach.
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NASA's proposed model is a health-effects model intended to provide estimates of cancer risk and uncertainties for defined space radiation exposure scenarios. More generally, however, the cancer risk to astronauts is dependent on much more than a defined scenario model of health effects, with engineered barriers, in the space radiation environment.
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From page 76... ...
2006. Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII Phase 2.
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