Statement of Intent to Release Instrument Concepts for Europa Exploration (ICEE) Solicitation
Statement of Intent to Release Instrument Concepts for Europa Exploration, a Solicitation on Instrument Technology Development in Support of the Europa Clipper Mission Concept
The NASA Science Mission Directorate Planetary Science Division intends to release a call for instrument technology development in support of the Europa Clipper mission concept entitled “Instrument Concepts for Europa Exploration (ICEE)”. The goal of this call is to mature and reduce the technical risk of instruments for the Europa Clipper mission to the point where they may be proposed in response to a possible future announcement of flight opportunity without additional extensive technology development. This call will be released as Appendix C.22 of the ROSES-2013 omnibus NRA through an Amendment to ROSES-2013.
Awarding the funds before the end of FY 2013 will require an extremely aggressive schedule. To that end, NASA plans to release the NRA no later than April 30; we anticipate that proposals will be due 45 days after the release of ROSES-2013 Appendix C.22.
The Europa Clipper strawman payload includes an Ice Penetrating Radar (IPR), a Shortwave Infrared Spectrometer (SWIRS), a Topographic Imager (TI), a mass spectrometer (MS), and a magnetometer. The IPR, SWIRS, TI, and MS have been identified as needing significant early development to enable them to operate in the Europan environment, and NASA plans to target those instruments with this funding opportunity. While other instruments may be proposed, selection preference will be given to proposed instruments in these four categories. U.S. proposers to the recent JUpiter ICy Moons Explorer (JUICE) AO are especially encouraged to consider proposing to this ICEE call if their JUICE instrument concepts are applicable to the Europa Clipper mission.
The ICEE solicitation will be released as an Amendment to ROSES-2013. ROSES-2013 can found on the NSPIRES web page at: http://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2013. This ICEE solicitation will appear as Appendix C.22 to ROSES-2013, at http://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ICEE2013. After the amendment to ROSES-2013 is released, this call and its due dates will appear on the tables of program elements organized by due date and subject matter which can be found, respectively, at http://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2013table2 and http://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2013table3.
Questions and comments related to this announcement should be addressed to Curt Niebur, Planetary Science Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Washington DC 20546. Phone: (202) 358-0390; E-mail: curt.niebur@nasa.gov.
