NASA GSFC Presolicitation Notice: Seeking Offers to Disseminate NASA Mission Concept Study Information By Electronic and Hardcopy Means

Synopsis – Sep 09, 2005

General Information

Solicitation Number: 09-30-2005-HBL

Posted Date: Sep 09, 2005

FedBizOpps Posted Date: Sep 09, 2005

Original Response Date: Sep 30, 2005

Current Response Date: Sep 30, 2005

Classification Code: 99 — Miscellaneous

NAICS Code: 541710 – Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences

Contracting Office Address

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Headquarters Acquisition Branch, Code 210.H, Greenbelt, MD 20771

Description

Statement of Purpose

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration seeks a no-exchange-of-funds collaboration with an organization that produces, markets, and/or distributes aerospace technical or scientific information for the purpose of disseminating results of recent advanced concept studies on possible future NASA space science missions. NASA is interested in reviewing proposals from organizations that are familiar with NASA’s mission, values, and goals, and that could enhance the Agency’s ability to disseminate information on these studies to the professional space science and space systems engineering communities.

The one-year studies whose results NASA is interested in disseminating were initiated in mid-2004, and focus on science missions (“Vision Missions”) that could be candidates for implementation by NASA for flight in the post-2013 timeframe. There are 15 mission studies in all, spanning the full range of space science areas: space astronomy, solar system exploration, and solar and heliospheric science. Abstracts of the advanced studies in question are provided in:

http://research.hq.nasa.gov/code_s/nra/current/NRA-03-OSS-01-VM/winners.html

Additional information about the scope of the studies is available in the original competitive solicitation for the studies:

http://research.hq.nasa.gov/code_s/nra/current/nra-03-oss-01/appendA4_2.html

The document to be disseminated will include results summaries of some or all of the 15 studies conducted. In addition to electronic distribution, NASA is seeking dissemination in the form of bound books, preferably both to an established circulation and through active marketing. NASA is contemplating entering into a collaboration with a single partner via a non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement that will define the full roles and responsibilities of NASA and the proposing organization. The collaboration will be structured on a no-exchange-of-funds basis; NASA will receive paper copies of the volume (number to be established in the partnership agreement) at no cost, and the partner will be permitted to market additional copies through its customary channels and practices. NASA will retain a Government purpose license in the delivered manuscript and in any published version of the manuscript (electronic or hardcopy).

Benefits to Collaborating Partner

NASA will deliver a technically edited manuscript, projected at 400-600 pages including illustrations, to the selected partner. In exchange for the partner’s investment to electronically distribute and print the volume and actively market it, the partner will retain the proceeds of this distribution.

Evaluation Criteria

Proposals must demonstrate the following to be considered:

• Submitting organization must be a recognized source of high quality information products within the professional aerospace or space science communities
• Submitting organization must have established processes for electronic and hardcopy distribution of scientific and technical information to the broad community of users of this kind of information

If these threshold requirements are met, NASA may enter into an agreement with the offeror whose proposal is most advantageous to the government based on these three factors: 1. Approach to electronic distribution of the provided document, and corresponding extent of its expected electronic distribution based on established processes or past experience with similar products 2. Anticipated distribution of hardcopy volumes via preestablished subscriptions or other existing mechanism(s) 3. Anticipated additional distribution of hardcopy units through active marketing, including an explanation of the basis for projections based on past experience with similar items

The proposal and the proposed method of dissemination must be consistent with applicable NASA statutes, policy, and regulations.

Proposal Requirements

This request will be open for 21 calendar days following the date of release of this announcement. Response to this Request for Information is strictly voluntary. This Request is not to be construed as a commitment by NASA, nor will NASA pay for the information submitted. Any questions regarding this request should be directed to the point of contact identified below.

Submittals should be limited to a cover letter and no more than four (4) pages double-spaced, with 1″ margins using Times New Roman 12-point type. Submission via hardcopy or fax must be received at the address indicated below by 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, on September 30, 2005, to be considered. Proposals hand-carried or delivered by commercial courier must arrive at NASA Headquarters at the address below. Notification of faxed responses should be provided to the Point of Contact below via telephone or email at the telephone number or email address provided below. Respondents will be sent an acknowledgement of the receipt of their materials by email if an email address for this purpose is provided by the responder.

NASA will use submissions only for evaluation purposes under this announcement. All proprietary information must be clearly marked in the proposals. Submit proposals to:

“NASA Headquarters 300 E Street, SW Washington, DC 20546 RFI No.: 09-30-2005-HBL Attention: Marc S. Allen/Mail Suite 3K39 PROPOSAL–DELIVER UNOPENED”

Point of Contact

Marc S. Allen Mail Suite 3K39 NASA Headquarters Room 3N15 Washington, DC 20546 For more information: 202-358-0733 (collect calls not accepted) Fax: 202-358-4118 E-mail: marc.allen@nasa.gov

Point of Contact Name: Dr. Marc S. Allen Title: Director of Advanced Programs Phone: (202) 358-0733 Fax: (202) 358-4118 Email: marc.allen@nasa.gov

Space Science Vision Missions Abstracts of awarded proposals. (NRA-03-OSS-01-VM) Below are the abstracts of proposals awarded funding for the Space Science Vision Missions Program. Principal Investigator (PI) name, institution, and proposal title are also included.

Steven Boggs / University of California at Berkeley Advanced Compton Telescope: Witness to the Fires of Creation

The Advanced Compton Telescope (ACT), the next major step in gamma-ray astronomy in NASA’s roadmap, will probe the nuclear fires where the chemical elements are forged. ACT will study abundant new nuclei produced in Type Ia supernova explosions in the Virgo Cluster and beyond, as well as study the engines of nucleosynthesis in our Galaxy. In addition, ACT will enable new classes of compact object observations, including detailed gamma-ray spectroscopy and polarization studies. The technological revolution enabling ACT is the development of 3-D position-sensitive detectors which resolve interaction sites and energies as photons Compton scatter throughout the instrument, providing a powerful new tool for background rejection, Compton imaging, and polarization studies. The primary goals of this ACT Concept Study are to transform the key scientific requirements into specific instrument requirements, and to identify the most promising technologies to meet these requirements. To this end, the final report of the study will include a Technology Roadmap, clearly identifying the detector and readout requirements, and laying out a realistic timeline for their development and implementation. Finally, we will develop a baseline ACT mission concept, including the mission requirements.

Roger Brissenden / Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Mission Study for Generation-X – a Large Area and High Angular Resolution X-ray Observatory to Study the Early Universe

The Generation-X Vision Mission will detect the first black holes formed when the Universe was only a few hundred million years old. Since these first black holes are likely relatively small (several hundred times the mass of our own Sun), a very sensitive X-ray telescope provides a unique way to find them. Detection of these early black holes with Gen-X provides insight into their progenitors – the first generation of massive stars – and their fiery deaths in supernova explosions. Gen-X can trace the growth of these first black holes as they accumulate material through galaxy mergers and accretion of gas and stars, and will image the extended emission from galaxies back to a time when the Universe was of order 1 billion years old, revealing the role played by black holes in the formation and evolution of galaxies. Gen-X is designed to obtain precise energy distributions or X-ray spectra, providing distances and ages for the galaxies and abundances of the various elements. These spectra measure detailed physical conditions such as temperatures, pressures, densities, and velocities. Gen-X also will detect the gas between galaxies enabling us to determine the global distribution of “ordinary” baryonic matter. To achieve these ambitious goals Gen-X requires an effective area of 100 m^2, 1000 times that of Chandra, currently our most powerful X-ray facility. To maximize the impact of this leap in area, the Gen-X angular resolution will be nearly 10 times better than Chandra and at least 50 times better than NASA’s planned Constellation-X which emphasizes high resolution X-ray spectroscopy. Gen-X will reach 100-1000 times deeper than Chandra and Con-X and will detail sources in complex regions such as cores of globular clusters and starburst galaxies. In our study, we will investigate various mission architectures starting from a baseline of 4 telescopes and instrument sets launched on 4 ELVs. Our trade study for Gen-X between a constellation of telescopes and a single large aperture assembled on-orbit by robotics or astronauts will be central to large OSS missions in the future, as will our studies of light-weight optics and their on-orbit alignment and active control. The Generation-X Vision Mission is essential for NASA’s goal to understand the cycles of matter and energy that govern the Universe, from shortly after the Big Bang to the present. Our objectives are well-matched to the OSS 2003 Strategy and the objectives of this Call for Mission Studies.

Kenneth Carpenter / NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center SI – The Stellar Imager: A UV-optical Interferometer in Space to Study Dynamo Activity of Stars and Observe the Universe at High Spatial Resolution

The Stellar Imager (SI) is a Vision mission in the Sun-Earth Connection (SEC) Roadmap, conceived for the purpose of understanding the various effects of magnetic fields of stars, the dynamos that generate them, and the internal structure and dynamics of the stars in which they exist. The ultimate goal is to achieve the best possible forecasting of solar activity on timescales ranging up to decades, and an understanding of the impact of stellar magnetic activity on life in the Universe. The road to that goal will revolutionize our understanding of stars and stellar systems, the building blocks of the Universe. The science goals of SI require a resolution in the ultraviolet on the order of 0.1 milli-arcseconds and baselines of up to 500 meters, to be achieved by a many-element interferometer in space. SI represents an advance in image detail of several hundred times over that of the Hubble Space Telescope. A facility such as SI will also be an invaluable resource for many other areas of astrophysics, including studies, for example, of the close-in structure of AGN’s, supernovae, cataclysmic variables, young stellar objects, QSO’s, and stellar black holes. This Vision Mission Study will evaluate and expand the discovery potential of the mission and refine the mission requirements for the primary and complementary science goals, define a Design Reference Mission, perform trade studies of selected major technical and architectural issues, improve the existing technology roadmap, and explore the details of deployment, operations, and safety and the possible roles of astronauts and/or robots in the construction and servicing of the facility. The study will be managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center and executed by a broad collaboration, including JPL and numerous partners at universities, astronomical institutes, and in industry. There will be substantial student involvement in all phases of the study at GSFC/UMD, Harvard, Tufts, SUNY/Stony Brook, and the U. of Colorado. The incorporation of results of separately funded previous and concurrent mission and technical studies, combined with substantial internal resource contributions by industry and university partners will leverage funding by this NRA and ensure a robust and productive Vision Mission Study.

Frank Carsey / Jet Propulsion Laboratory PALMER QUEST: Searching for Life Below the Ice Caps of Mars

We propose to study PALMER QUEST, a candidate major NASA mission to the basal domain of a polar cap of Mars in a search for extant life. The approach is to: 1. Examine the design and instrumentation of a landed mission delivering a probe that descends through the ice sheet to search for life at its bed, and 2. Evaluate extensions of the basic mission including studies to quantify of surface fluxes of biochemicals, nutrients and water ice over the annual cycle and to examine outcropped ice cap strata and basal units from a surface rover. The science goal of PALMER QUEST is: Assess the presence of life and evaluate the habitability of the basal domain of the Mars polar caps. This goal is realized through two baseline-mission objectives: 1. Determine the presence of amino acids, nutrients, and geochemical heterogeneity in the ice sheet. 2. Quantify and characterize the provenance of the amino acids in Mars’ ice. And two enhanced-mission objectives: 3. Determine the accumulation of ice, mineralogic material and amino acids in Mars ice caps over the present epoch. 4. Assess the stratification of outcropped units for indications of habitable zones. The baseline site of study is the North Polar Cap’s Lower Platy Unit, most likely a lag deposit characterized by chemical diversity, a concentration of organics from infall, substantial historical liquid water flow, and good proximity to the probable Mars paleoseafloor. Baseline implementation of PALMER QUEST includes a high level of all-season multiyear power and thus involves application of nuclear fission systems to provide both electrical and thermal power, which is not waste power in the case of this mission. Data from PALMER QUEST will provide answers to questions addressed by the Solar System Exploration roadmap, specifically to : –Understand the current state and evolution of the atmosphere, surface, and interior of Mars. –Determine if life exists or has ever existed on Mars. –Develop an understanding of Mars in support of possible future human exploration. All this is done ‘following the water’ in Mars largest known reservoir of water. PALMER QUEST will explore the deep subsurface of a major ice sheet on Mars by drilling through approximately 2 km of dusty ice while acquiring data en route and at the bed.

James Green / University of Colorado, Boulder The Next Revolution in Astronomy: A Large Optical-UV Space Telescope for the 21st Century

We propose to develop a baseline mission concept for a large aperture optical-uv space telescope that will be worthy successor to the HST- exceeding its capabilities and driving new and compelling science. Our baseline will include sufficient technical realism to be achievable in a 10-year time scale from mission start to launch. It will directly address the fundamental questions identified in the NASA Origins strategic plan, as well as enable an enormous increase in discovery space. This new telescope will represent a revolution in observing power. The information density of our instruments will be 1000 times greater than HST’s. This unprecedented level of capability will enable a new era of scientific inquiry, and provide leaps forward in knowledge similar to those achieved by HST. Technical trade-offs to be studied include the use of astronauts, the orbital location, the telescope size and architecture, and the appropriate instrument suite.

Martin Harwit / Cornell University Far-Infrared and Submillimeter Interferometer

The purpose of this space-based far-infrared / submillimeter interferometer is to address four primary areas of great current interest: The search for the first condensations — the Population III stars — formed early in the evolution of the Universe; the luminosity evolution of galaxies over the aeons; the formation of stars; and the evolution of protostellar disks to give rise to planetary systems. Each of these searches will require high spatial resolution to provide clear images in the far infrared / submillimeter range, where much of the requisite information will have to be obtained. This information will comprise both imaging and spectroscopy at high spatial resolution. Spectroscopy will provide chemical insights of two kinds: 1) an understanding of the evolutionary rise of the abundance of elements heavier than helium, over the past few billion years, and 2) a clearer picture of the interaction between chemistry and dynamics in the interstellar and circumstellar medium, in merging galaxies and in processes leading to protostellar and protoplanetary collapse.

Andrew Ingersoll / California Institute of Technology Study of a Neptune Orbiter with Probes Mission: A Response to NASA NRA-03-OSS-01-VM, “Call for Mission Concepts: Space Science Vision Missions”

We propose to study a Neptune Orbiter with Probes (Study Case 17 of NRA-03-OSS-01-VM), a flagship mission to perform Cassini-level exploration of the Neptune system. Neptune is the prototypical ice giant, a planet composed largely of water, methane, ammonia, and other compounds that form ices at planetary temperatures. The ice giants Uranus and Neptune may be accretion cores of failed hydrogen- and helium-rich gas giants. As the outermost giant planet, Neptune appears to lie at the dynamical limit for nebular debris from solar system formation. The scientific objectives of our study are: to bring our understanding of ice giants to a level where we can usefully compare with gas giants both inside and outside our solar system; to explore Neptune’s satellite Triton, an analog for trans-Neptunian objects that are a likely source of volatiles for the inner solar system; and to explore Neptune’s rings and magnetosphere, which are analogs for the solar nebula and for the accretion disks around other stars. We will study and conduct science/engineering trades for all aspects of mission architecture: transportation to Neptune, orbit insertion at Neptune, delivery and support of multiple Neptune entry probes, orbital tour in the Neptune system, and communications during the orbital tour. We will study new technologies: aerocapture, nuclear power sources, high-speed entry into a planetary atmosphere, and high data rate, which is needed for high-resolution mapping spectroscopy. Under this NRA we will focus on aerocapture as the means to achieve orbit insertion at Neptune. The other practical approach is nuclear electric propulsion (NEP), but this would appropriately be studied under the High Capability Mission Concepts (HCMC) NRA for missions to follow the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO). The significance of the proposed study derives from its relevance to the NASA and Office of Space Science (OSS) Strategic Plans, which are “to learn how the Sun’s family of planets and minor bodies originated,” “to learn how the solar system evolved to its current diverse state,” “to learn what our solar system can tell us about extrasolar planetary systems,” and “to determine the characteristics of the solar system that led to the origin of life.” By making this study the focus of a yearlong course at Caltech, we will “provide real-world, hands-on experience to help them (today’s students) become the next generation of explorers.”

Daniel Lester / University of Texas at Austin Science Promise and Conceptual Mission Design Study for SAFIR – the Single Aperture Far Infrared Observatory

SAFIR is a large (10m-class), cold (4-10K) space telescope for wavelengths between approximately 20microns and 1mm. It will provide sensitivity of a factor of a hundred or more over that of SIRTF and Herschel, leveraging their capabilities and building on their scientific legacies. Covering this scientifically critical wavelength regime, it will complement the expected wavelength performance of the future flagship endeavors JWST and ALMA. This vision mission will probe the origin of stars and galaxies in the early universe, and explore the formation of solar systems around nearby young stars. Endorsed as a priority by the Decadal Study and successive OSS roadmaps, SAFIR represents a huge science need that is matched by promising and innovative technologies that will allow us to satisfy it. In exercising those technologies it will create the path for future infrared missions. This study will refine the scientific goals of the mission, explore promising approaches for it’s architecture, and sharpen understanding about remaining technological challenges that will allow us to recommend optimal strategic investments. Our broadly based team will show how SAFIR responds to the scientific challenges in the OSS Strategic Plan, and how the observatory can be brought within technological reach.

Joel Levine / Langley Research Center Titan Explorer: Orbiter and Aerial Platform

A scientific investigation of the atmosphere, clouds, haze, and surface of Titan is proposed. The proposed Titan Explorer platforms will include an orbiter with remote sensing instrumentation and an aerial platform to obtain both in situ and remote measurements of the atmosphere, clouds, haze, and surface of Titan. The scientific objectives, measurement requirements, mission implementation and the required technologies to successfully accomplish the scientific objectives of the mission will be assessed.

Paulett Liewer / Jet Propulsion Laboratory Solar Polar Imager: Observing Solar Activity from a New Perspective

Our current understanding of the Sun and its atmosphere is severely limited by a lack of observations of the polar regions of the Sun. The Solar Polar Imager mission uses solar sail propulsion to place a spacecraft in a 0.5 AU circular orbit around the Sun with an inclination of 60*. This first direct view of the polar regions of the Sun enables crucial observations not possible from the usual ecliptic viewpoint and gives measurements needed to address each aspect of the first challenge in the 2002 Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey Science Challenges: “Understanding the structure and dynamics of the Sun’s interior, the generation of solar magnetic fields, the origin of the solar cycle, the causes of solar activity, and the structure and dynamics of the corona.” The mission will obtain measurements of the magnetic fields and convective flows in the polar regions of the Sun that are crucial to understanding the solar magnetic dynamo and hence to developing a predictive capability for solar activity. In addition, the SPI mission can give observations needed to achieve goals of NASA’s Living With a Star program by viewing coronal mass ejections, the corona, the heliosphere, and the solar irradiance from the polar orbit. The SPI Mission has been included in NASA’s last two SEC Roadmaps, but science goals for the SPI mission have not been validated or prioritized by a formal science definition team, nor has the optimum instrument package or orbit been studied. The goals of this proposed mission study are (1) to refine the primary and secondary science goals of the SPI; (2) to study the instruments, data rate and orbit (radius and inclination) needed to achieve the primary and secondary science and LWS goals; and (3) to study the mission design, e.g. the trade space involving the orbit radius and inclination, the payload mass, the sail capability and the mission life time. The roadmap mission concept studies of this mission have focused on a point design for a specified set of requirements. In this study, a much wider range of requirements and missions will be explored. This study will also (4) explore the use manned space flight assets to mitigate the risks associated with solar sail deployment, and (5) generate requirements on the solar sail system to feed into the NASA’s In Space Propulsion program’s technology roadmap for solar sails; for this reason, MSFC is participating as a “Contributing Partner” in this proposal. The proposal study team, led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, consists of a team of experts in the appropriate science and technology fields needed to address these goals.

Jonathan Lunine / Jet Propulsion Laboratory Titan Organics Exploration Study

The objective of this study is to design a spacecraft and instrument package capable of investigations of the surface and atmosphere of Titan that follow on from the Cassini Huygens mission and respond to the highest priority goals of NASA solar system exploration. Titan Organics Explorer (TOES) will build on the results of the Cassini/Huygens atmospheric mission to develop follow-on mission concepts which seek, sample, and analyze surface and sub-surface organic molecules that might hold clues to understanding the transition process from pre-biotic to biological processes on Earth. The primary science objectives derived for this proposal based on the NRA Titan explorer Case Study #16 are as follows: (1) Sample the Titan atmosphere near the surface with a focus on tholins (i.e., the multitude of suspended organic molecules that give Titan’s atmosphere an orange hue); (2) Sample possible organic rich lakes both at the surface and subsurface, and accessing the bottom material of craters with a focus on identifying the full array of organic compounds/derivatives; (3) Sample possible impact craters with a focus on regions where transient liquid water and organics might have interacted to generate interesting organic chemistry-also, look for chiral (i.e., a structural characteristic of life-bearing molecules on Earth) and other signatures of aqueous organic evolution. The surface component of the flight architecture will first derive an array of surface options for delivering the science payload, followed by developing functional models of the surface system (whether it is a stationary lander or mobility system like an aerobot). Advanced organic analysis instruments will be identified and evaluated as part of the study. The outcome for NASA will be a design concept for a mission to Titan to address a key goal of astrobiology–how organic chemistry evolves toward life.

Ralph McNutt / The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Innovative Interstellar Explorer

The proposed work will address a systems concept for exploring the outer helioshphere, heliosphere interaction region with the very-local interstellar medium (VLISM), and the VLISM itself. We will address the flowdown of science measurment requirements though a required set of instruments and an appropriate system architecture and implementation.

Sterl Phinney / California Institute of Technology The Big Bang Observer: Direct Detection of Gravitational Waves from the Birth of the Universe to the Present

We propose to study mission concepts for a space-based laser interferometer which would be sensitive enough to detect directly gravitational waves predicted by standard slow-roll inflation models, at levels comparable to those proposed by microwave background polarisation experiments, but at 10^{17} times higher frequency: 0.1-10Hz. The mission concepts that we propose to study are based loosely on the LISA heritage, but because the sensitivity required for detection and foreground subtraction is so much greater, many new technical challenges arise, some of which have been faced by ground-based interferometers (e.g. LIGO, GEO-600, VIRGO), and some of which are unique. Issues, trades, and techology needs that we will investigate as we develop a best mission concept include: laser power, thermal noise, mirror design, pointing stability, interferometer configuration and operation, stationkeeping, gravitational reference sensing and data analysis/foreground removal.

Harvey Willenberg / Boeing Company Neptune Orbiter with Probes

This proposal supports the NASA NRA 03-OSS-01, Amendment No. 6, Space Science Vision Missions. It specifically addresses Research Focus Area 1(b) of the OSS Solar System Exploration Theme, an element of Strategic Goal II: to study the processes that determine the characteristics of bodies in our Solar System and how these processes operate and interact. The key objectives of this study are to develop a mission architecture for a probe-based scientific mission to the Neptunian atmosphere. We will perform conceptual design of the probes that will penetrate the Neptunian atmosphere to collect and transmit data back to Earth. We will identify achievable science collection environments for the probe, define a range of feasible mission architectures, and develop a program roadmap for designing the mission, the spacecraft and orbiter systems, and the instrument complement to accomplish a detailed investigation of Neptune with an orbiter and probes. We will also identify technical challenges and develop a technology roadmap to accomplish this mission in the 2013-2016 timeframe. The Boeing team, with Spectrum Astro support, will work with the science team to develop the key science requirements and a reference instrument complement to carry aboard the probes and orbiter. We will develop a reference mission architecture based on the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) reactor and spacecraft. We will perform trade studies around the spacecraft, probes, and instrument complements to identify the feasible mission tradespace and technology requirements. We will then develop a technology roadmap to raise the readiness level of the instruments and the spacecraft to a level ready for launch. The significance of this effort will be to increase our knowledge of the internal structures and compositions of the ice giants beyond the data gathered during the Voyager flyby, and provide a data base for comparison with data gathered for the gas giants from Galileo and Cassini. It will extend the mission options for the JIMO systems to the next mission, and develop the Galileo and Huygens probe technology to Neptune.

Thomas Zurbuchen / University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Leaving the Heliosphere: Interstellar Probe

It is the purpose of this mission to follow up NASA’s exploratory mission to explore the heliospheric boundary regions, and, for the first time, enter our galactic environment. Interstellar Probe therefore has captured the imagination of the science community and the public for several decades. However, until now technology obstacles have made such a mission impossible. In 1997 NASA commissioned a science and technology definition team to address both, science and technology aspects of this mission. However, a number of scientific issues and technology aspects have changed significantly. Voyager now has observed the first signatures of the heliosphere’s termination shock, and therefore, the scale of the heliosphere is a lot clearer. We now also have modern three-dimensional simulations of the heliospheric interface regions. In addition, nuclear power has become a feasible alternative for propulsion of Interstellar Probe. We intend to look for cross disciplinary opportunities with scientific studies of the outer solar system and astrophysics, in an effort to broaden the scope and impact of the IS mission. We will also study how the possibility of nuclear propulsion might affect the instrumentation, mission requirements, and the mission plan, as well as how it may enable new science objectives.