NASA Stand Alone Missions of Opportunity Notice Announcement of Opportunity Status

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Stand Alone Missions of Opportunity Notice (SALMON), is intended to provide 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 as needed Program Element Appendices (PEAs) for general Mission of Opportunity (MO) proposal opportunities as well as focused proposal opportunities for specific flight opportunities.

NASA is preparing for release a final version of the SALMON AO based on the comments the community submitted on the draft that was released on March 14, 2008, and updated on March 21, 2008 (available at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/, select “Solicitations,” select “Closed Solicitations,” select “SALMON DRAFT”). The four PEAs included in this final version being prepared for release solicit: Lunar and Planetary Science Partner Missions of Opportunity, Small Complete Missions of Opportunity in Astrobiology and Fundamental Space Biology, Lunar and Planetary Science U.S. Participating Investigators (USPIs), and Earth Science USPIs. Since USPIs are not developing hardware, proposals will be submitted to an opportunity within NASA’s Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) and all ROSES requirements will apply including electronic submission.

NASA expects the final version to be released no later than August 2008. Proposals for all four of the initial PEAs will be due 90 days from the date of release. NASA expects to make all selections, without any further downselections, no more than five months after the proposals are due.

Release of the SALMON AO is in the process of formally being approved by NASA. However, by sending this announcement to prospective investigators at this time (prior to release), NASA is under no obligation to issue the AO and solicit proposals. Any costs incurred by prospective investigators in preparing submissions in response to this announcement are incurred completely at the submitter’s own risk.

Further information will be posted at http://salmon.larc.nasa.gov/ as it becomes available. Questions may be addressed to Dr. Carlos Liceaga, Science Mission Directorate, NASA, Washington, DC 20546; Tel.: (202) 358-4666; Email: Carlos.A.Liceaga@nasa.gov.