NASA ROSES-11 Amendment 35: Revised text for Appendix D.8 Strategic Astrophysics Technology
Over the next decade and beyond, NASA’s Astrophysics Division expects to undertake a suite of space flight missions. Implementing them presents many daunting technological challenges. To overcome these challenges and pave the way to ever more ambitious missions, NASA’s Astrophysics Division is establishing the Strategic Astrophysics Technology (SAT) program to support the maturation of key technologies to the point at which they are feasible for implementation in space flight missions.
The SAT Program is designed to support the maturation of technologies whose feasibility has already been demonstrated (i.e., TRL 3), to the point where they can be incorporated into NASA flight missions (TRL 6-7). Sometimes referred to as the “mid-TRL gap,” funding for such intermediate TRL development activities has historically been problematic because technologies in this regime are sufficiently mature that they are ill-suited to funding under basic research programs, yet still too immature for a mission to assume the risk of incorporating it into a flight system. Indeed, the problem of the mid-TRL gap was of such concern that it is specifically called out in the Astro2010 report, and an enhancement in funding specifically targeted at mid-TRL development is included among its Small Project recommendations. This is the role of the SAT program.
This amendment presents revised text for Appendix D.8 including new priorities for technology investment for Physics of the Cosmos Missions in in Section 3, and a new point of contact for Technology Development for the Cosmic Origins, in addition to many other small changes to the text. New text is in bold and deleted text is struckthrough.
The due date for Notices of Intent and proposals remain unchanged at January 27, 2012, and March 23, 2012, respectively.
On or about December 22 2011, this Amendment to the NASA Research Announcement “Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) 2011” (NNH11ZDA001N) will be posted on the NASA research opportunity homepage at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ (select “Solicitations” then “Open Solicitations” then “NNH11ZDA001N”). You can now track amendments, clarifications, and corrections to ROSES and subscribe to an RSS feed at: http://nasascience.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/grant-solicitations/roses-2011
Further information about this amendment and the Laboratory Astrophysics section of the SAT program element is available from Douglas Hudgins, Astrophysics Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546-0001; Telephone: (202) 358-0988; E-mail: Douglas.M.Hudgins@nasa.gov.
