The Space Science Decadal Surveys Lessons Learned and Best Practices (2015) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Decadal Survey Process
2 The Decadal Survey Process
Pages 30-53
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From page 30... ...
COMMON FACTORS AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DISCIPLINES Common Threads Although decadal surveys have many discipline-specific science goals and objectives, there are also many similar factors that, during this committee's deliberations, were recognized as common themes that apply to all surveys. First and foremost, each survey needs to engage its science community across a broad range of specific disciplines in order to identify the most important science questions and goals for the coming decade.
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From page 31... ...
, and other stakeholders, the decadal survey report needs to be seen as a consensus document that is not circumvented by "special interests" pleading their priorities to their representatives in Congress and/or the administration. Differences in Survey Structure Prominent distinctions between decadal surveys can be attributed to differences in their disciplines, influencing the number of panels and the areas of focus, the interfaces between the committee and panels, the structure and roles of the committee versus the panels, how reports from the panels are provided to the survey committee for deliberation, and whether or not the panel reports are included in the final survey.
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From page 32... ...
This discipline has also provided explicit decision rules, but it is perhaps too early to assess their ultimate effectiveness.10 4 NRC, Lessons Learned in the Decadal Planning in Space Science, 2013, p.
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From page 33... ...
process, leading to development of more notional mission concepts.13 Each community draws from the lessons learned and best practices of its earlier decadal surveys, and from the experiences of other disciplines that use the decadal survey process. Lesson Learned: There is no "one-size-fits-all" approach to a decadal survey.
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From page 34... ...
The extent 14 For all decadal surveys, community input has been solicited on both science questions and implementation strategies for the coming decade. While community input can address the full spectrum of implementation activities, a significant percentage of community input is focused on particular space mission concepts.
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The Earth Sciences Division supports competed Venture-class missions (space missions, hosted instruments, and suborbital campaigns with varying cost caps under $150 million that are managed by the Earth System Science Pathfinder Program) and directed systematic missions of various sizes (both cost-capped and performance-driven)
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From page 36... ...
Best Practice: Decadal surveys can present their implementation strategies as reference missions -- that is, a credible hardware configuration that can achieve the science goals and is sufficiently defined for robust cost evaluation -- instead of blueprints for detailed implementation. Best Practice: It is desirable that the survey committee determine, as early in the process as possible, how robust a mission concept needs to be to provide sufficient cost certainty.
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From page 37... ...
Lesson Learned: Because each of the disciplines define and develop missions differently, there can be no uniform approach in dealing with mission concepts from prior decadal surveys, mission concepts that are under competition, or missions in Phase A study. Nonetheless, it is highly desirable for a survey committee to decide early on how to deal with such situations and to communicate this to the panels.
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What Do Decadal Surveys Prioritize? A decadal survey committee's key role is in the prioritization of science goals and objectives.
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As discussed in Chapter 1, all decadal survey committees have used panels to organize and to winnow community inputs in order to guide the early steps of prioritization. As noted at the 2012 workshop, most survey committees delegate the formulation of key science priorities to supporting panels.19 A variety of criteria and techniques have been used by the four SMD disciplines to prioritize science, observing systems, and supporting activities.
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Eventually, the survey committee requested each of the three panels to identify its highest-ranked mission concepts for additional study by a design team. 23 Prioritization criteria included scientific merit, relevance to societal issues, technical readiness, and timing relative to the solar cycle or other missions.
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Next, the panels developed concepts for reference missions to address these science questions. Selected mission concepts were forwarded from the panels, via the survey committee, to leading mission design centers to assess their technical feasibility.
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Questions of how to balance the prioritization of science and missions were discussed at length throughout the workshop. 40 With the exception of Astro2010, decadal surveys have used panels that prioritized science and missions together, and in Planetary2011, in particular, this process was augmented by contemporaneous involvement by the survey committee itself.
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From page 43... ...
Challenges to Science and Mission Prioritization Processes Clarity of task from sponsoring agencies and substantial involvement of the community are essential components in the process. The success of future decadal surveys lies in part with the following: 42 NRC, Lessons Learned in Decadal Planning in Space Science, 2013, p.
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From page 44... ...
The committee suggests that, in order to attend to the legitimate concerns of NASA SMD, future decadal surveys can choose to describe "reference missions" rather than explicitly recommend specific point designs for direct implementation. Reference missions are implementation architectures that are judged capable of addressing specific science goals.
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From page 45... ...
Lesson Learned: It is important that decadal surveys explicitly note which proposed missions are reference missions -- i.e., subject to further development -- versus those intended as explicit implementation recommen dations based on mature and well-refined concepts. As noted above in the section "Mission Formulation and Development," decadal surveys can utilize reference missions in their science prioritization processes as "existence proofs" -- i.e., demonstrations that spacecraft missions addressing specific science goals are feasible -- that allow continued development of missions to best achieve a survey's science goals and serve the interests of all stakeholders.
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Moreover, the period between decadal surveys is an ideal time to work on mission concepts and to bring them up to a minimal standard of development. Similar thinking may apply to issues of international collaboration (see Chapter 4)
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From page 47... ...
2. Ensure that the duration of the decadal survey process is kept as short as is reasonably possible to ensure that the recommended program aligns as closely as possible with the current fiscal environment. The 18 to 24 months required to complete the many activities of a survey committee, including input from the community, panel meetings, and survey deliberation, is unlikely to be significantly shortened.
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From page 48... ...
A number of cost overruns, most notably those of JWST and the Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity rover, begged the question, does the decadal process need a dimension of technical feasibility and cost evaluation? A 2006 report of the Academies drew the following conclusion: Major missions in space and Earth science are being executed at costs well in excess of the costs estimated at the time when the missions were recommended in the National Research Council's decadal surveys for their disciplines.
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From page 49... ...
Coming out of the Beyond Einstein Program Advisory Committee and the reports and workshops noted above, it was consistently observed that previous decadal surveys significantly underappreciated mission costs and difficulty. This was noticed by Congress, and in 2008, the NASA Authorization Act, codifying the decadal surveys, mandated that the Academies "include independent estimates of the life cycle costs and technical readi ness of missions assessed in the decadal survey wherever possible."56 In response to this congressional mandate, the Academies chose an independent contractor, the Aerospace Corporation, to assist in this task.
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Although each of the three surveys evaluated mission concepts, the process was adapted for each survey to account for the different ways reference missions originated. Many of the mission concepts evaluated during Astro2010 and Planetary2011 had been studied in some depth by teams at NASA centers or at the Johns opkins University Applied Physics Laboratory prior to or during the course of the respective survey.
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Based on feedback during the CATE process, CATE results for three descoped mission variations were also provided. Some commonalities and differences in the application of the CATE process across the decadal surveys are summarized in the Table 2.2.
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From page 52... ...
Best Practice: To prevent the CATE analysis from unnecessarily "driving" the decadal survey process, survey committees can consider implementation of a two-step CATE in which rough technical readiness and risk assessment feedback (accurate to a factor of two or three) would be provided for most, if not all, concepts early in the survey process.
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From page 53... ...
Lesson Learned: The combination of budgetary constraints (wedges) and large, complex mission concepts can lead to difficult choices, reinforcing the need for a thorough understanding of mission costs and risks as well as the establishment of clear decision rules.
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