Draft SALMON Announcement of Opportunity is available for comments

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Stand Alone Missions of Opportunity Notice (SALMON), is intended to provide regular opportunities for science and technology investigations on space flight missions that advance the high priority science, technology, and exploration objectives of NASA’s four Mission Directorates. This five year Omnibus Announcement of Opportunity (AO) will incorporate regular Program Element Appendices (PEAs) for general Mission of Opportunity (MO) proposal opportunities as well as focused proposal opportunities for specific flight opportunities. This AO will include domestic and foreign-led mission opportunities. PEAs will solicit proposals addressing specific topics of interest from the four NASA Mission Directorates. Proposals will typically be solicited in one or more of five MO categories: Partner Missions of Opportunity, U.S. Participating Investigators, New Science Missions using Existing Spacecraft, Small Complete Missions, and Focused Opportunities. This approach will better enable NASA and the science and technology communities to maximize their participation in domestic and international space flight missions of opportunity.

NASA is releasing a DRAFT of the SALMON AO for community review and comment. The five PEAs included in this DRAFT solicit: Lunar and Planetary Science Partner Missions of Opportunity, Lunar and Planetary Science U.S. Participating Investigators, Small Complete Missions of Opportunity in Astrobiology and Fundamental Space Biology, Earth Science U.S. Participating Investigators, and Astrophysics U.S. Participating Investigators. Participation in this AO will be open to all categories of organizations (U.S. and non-U.S.), including educational institutions, industry, not-for-profit organizations, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), NASA Centers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and other Government agencies.

NASA welcomes critical review and comment of this DRAFT, which will be available from March 14, 2008, through April 4, 2008, via the World Wide Web site: http://nspires.nasaprs.com/. Send comments to Dr. Carlos Liceaga, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546-0001. E-mail: Carlos.A.Liceaga@nasa.gov. Comments are preferred in writing and may be sent by E-mail; the character string “SALMON DRAFT AO” (without quotes) should be included in the subject line of all transmissions. The identity of those submitting comments will be held in confidence. Answers to frequently asked questions about this DRAFT will be made available on the SALMON Acquisition Additional Information web page, available via the World Wide Web site: http://salmon.larc.nasa.gov/index.html.