Southwest Research Institute Pitching Jupiter Mission

The planet Venus – and various asteroids – are the focus of the investigations.

“PSI right now is involved in nearly every one of NASA’s solar system exploration missions, and so that kind of continues our level of involvement”, said Mark Sykes, PSI director. A Photo Tour of the Planets]. These are competing, small, robotic solar-system missions.

Sykes says PSI has grown from a little more than a dozen scientists a decade ago to more than 100 planetary researchers who are involved in NASA and global missions. Each of the five investigation teams will receive $3 million to conduct concept design studies and analyses. After a detailed review and evaluation of the concept studies, NASA will make the final selections by September 2016 for continued development leading up to launch.

Any mission that is ultimately selected will cost about $500 million, not including launch costs or the costs of post-launch operations, NASA officials said.

VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy) plans to create global, high-resolution topography and imaging on Venus’ surface. The mission would be managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

DAVINCI is an atmospheric probe that would study the composition of Venus’ thick air during an hourlong descent. The mission is expected to be managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Psyche mission could explain the origin of planetary cores by studying the metallic asteroid Psyche. This asteroid is likely the survivor of a violent hit-and-run with another object that stripped off the outer, rocky layers of a protoplanet.

Keeping in mind the end goal to choose its next huge mission, NASA will be investigating five science examinations throughout the following year. The mission would use the planned Near Earth Object Camera to find and start to define “10 times more near-Earth objects (asteroids) than all NEOs discovered to date”. Amy Mainzer of JPL is the PI, and JPL would manage the mission.

According to a NASA statement, over the next year, scientists and administrators will assess five investigation concepts-two of the missions would send a probe to Venus, while three of the potential missions would study either single or multiple asteroids.

In 2014, NASA’s Discovery Program invited agency’s scientists to submit proposals for spaceflight investigations. The submissions that didn’t make it to the final round include a life-hunting mission to Saturn’s ocean-harboring moon Enceladus, a mission to Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, and several projects that would have explored Mars’ two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos.