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Space & Planetary Science

NASA Picks InSight Mission for Discovery Program (Update)

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
August 20, 2012
Filed under , ,

Keith’s note: Sources report that NASA has selected JPL’s InSight mission to drill on Mars. Given that this is based on Mars Phoenix which, in turn, heavily utilized Mars Polar Lander designs, you can rest assured that NASA will never be able to tell you how much this mission really cost or how much was “saved” by using existing designs.
JPL’s InSight: Ignoring The Real Costs – and its MPL Heritage, earlier post
Confusion About Future NASA Landers on Mars, earlier post
Keith’s note: Telecon note: If you look at the NASA JPL website and other related materials there are frequent references to InSight’s design heritage i.e. “The InSight mission is similar in design to the Mars lander that the Phoenix mission used successfully in 2007 to study ground ice near the north pole of Mars. The reuse of this technology, developed and built by Lockheed-Martin Space Systems in Denver, CO, will provide a low-risk path to Mars without the added cost of designing and testing a new system from scratch.”
When I asked how much money was saved by re-using this design NASA (Jim Greene) could not answer. He said that NASA only looked at the current design and not at any previous mission. When I asked how it is that NASA can cite the cost saving/risk reduction from using a previous mission design in one location but then say that it is not relevant in another situation i.e. that this sounded contradictory, Green’s reply was confusing and did not answer my question. I guess I will have to listen to the replay to see if it makes any sense the second time around.
SMD AA John Grunsfeld did make a good point that InSight is designed to last for several years in a more equatorial location whereas Phoenix had a limited life due to its polar location.

NASA Discovery-class Mission Announcement Today
“NASA will host a media teleconference at 5 p.m. EDT today to discuss the selection of a new Discovery-class mission that will further NASA’s exploration of the solar system. The selection will be the 12th in NASA’s series of Discovery-class missions. The teleconference also will be streamed live online at: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio
NASA will send robot drill to Mars in 2016, Washington Post
“This is another big day for us out at JPL,” said Gregg Vane, the lab’s head of planning for solar system exploration.”
Keith’s note: Hilarious how JPL breaks NASA’s own news embargoes …

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

38 responses to “NASA Picks InSight Mission for Discovery Program (Update)”

  1. fieldtrip says:
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     “…you can rest assured that NASA will never be able to tell you how much
    this mission really cost or how much was “saved” by using existing
    designs.”

    So therefor what?

    • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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      Well simply that NASA has no handle on the costs of it’s missions.  This should of course come as no surprise when you look at the enormous budget overruns on recent programs including MSL.
      If NASA doesn’t understand how it drives costs, how can it possibly control them.  Zero for management.

      • Ken Hampton says:
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         That’s inaccurate.  There are plenty of missions with problems, most of them of the flagship variety.  The problem seems to be more with managing colossus.  Plenty of smaller missions ($<1B) come in on time and budget as promised.  Grail is an excellent example. 

  2. bwohlgemuth says:
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    You know, with all the probes, orbiters, and other things on this planet….why can’t anyone design a mission that would use all of those sources?  How about something along the lines of Deep Impact….shove a large chunk of copper at Mars at high speed..use the existing probes to measure vibrations from the impact?

  3. Svetoslav Alexandrov says:
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    Well, I’m personally happy that despite the fact NASA won’t participate in ExoMars, ESA and Russia won’t be alone in 2016 when they send probes to Mars 🙂

  4. Stuart J. Gray says:
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    Because it is somewhat unfair to the rest of the industry to always fund Lockmart for these missions. Different missions are not allowed to use “assets” from other missions without an official transfer ok’ed by NASA.  To continue to pick LMA time after time does not give the other aerospace businesses a chance to develop their own in house technology base funded by NASA.  for instance: What if say MASTEN wanted to build a Mars lander…. would they have access to LMA’s proprietary technology paid for by all of the taxpayers $$ spent on previous LMA missions? – answer – NO.  So LMA continues to get these missions because of previous missions. Kind of unfair to the little guys….

    • Anonymous says:
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      An additional data point regarding competition:  LockMart was the prime on all three Discovery proposal finalists.

  5. James Lundblad says:
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    I wonder if it will land at Gale Crater? Guided entry? Perhaps Curiosity could shoot a video of the landing?

    • Stuart J. Gray says:
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      It appears to be a rebuild of the Mars 98/01/Phoenix design.
      Chances are that the spacecraft (lander, entry & cruise stages) will be identical to those. Just the science instruments will be different.
      I also see what appears to be an attempt to boil away volatiles and collect them. If that works, they could attempt an in-situ fuel processing station.

      • Susan Keddie says:
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        Not sure where you get the volatile idea from. This is a geophysics mission. According to their website (http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov… they have a seismometer and a heat flow probe, and will do precision tracking to determine planetary rotation details.

        • Stuart J. Gray says:
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          I was referring to the thing that looks like an umbrella sitting on the ground.

          If the drill probe is assumed to heat the soil, then volatiles will boil off.
          If they do not have collection experiment with a spectrometer then they must have something equivalent.

    • Mader Levap says:
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       Why it would land on place already explored by different robot? We have whole planet to research. Landing in different place every time make more sense at this stage.

  6. bobhudson54 says:
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    I wish they’d alter the design and remove the solar panels in favor of a snap generator. By doing this, the vehicle could operate year round.

    • Jeff Havens says:
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      If it’s going to be an equatorial landing, wouldn’t the lander have a longer lifespan?  Not that the SNAP generator is a bad idea…

  7. Stuart J. Gray says:
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    The Discovery Program was founded on a level playing field between contractors and NASA so that missions could be done cheaply with much higher levels of acceptable risk. This was partially to spread the wealth and allow less experienced companies participate. The idea was to allow more companies to develop these kinds of technologies themselves.  After a couple of failures WIRE (a SMEX, not discovery mission) & CONTOUR, NASA lost it’s interest in the “high risk” missions and went back to the old way of doing business: pick the contractors most likey to succeed, not the best investment in the future.

    I believe it was Dan Goldin that was quoted as saying “If we dont have some failures, then we are not taking enough risk” regarding the discovery program.

    IMO this mission does not fit within the Discovery finance model. Or at least WOULD NOT if not for the prior investments on the previous missions (including one high profile failure).

    From the NASA discovery website:

    “As a complement to NASA’s larger “flagship” planetary science explorations, the Discovery Program goal is to achieve outstanding results by launching many smaller missions using fewer resources and shorter development times.”

    “fewer resources” + “shorter development” = More Risk
    Remember “Faster, Better, Cheaper”?

    • RockyMtnSpace says:
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      More sour grapes from a Ball employee.  Discovery missions are first and foremost selected for Phase A studies based on science merit in a competitive environment.  Who provides the spacecraft is a secondary consideration.  This changes during the concept definition studies as implementation of the science (i.e. instruments) and implementation of the mission (i.e mission design and spacecraft) are evaluated.  Spacecraft providers are selected (either through a competitive process via the NASA center partner (JPL, APL, GSFC, etc.) or by the PI based on prior performance on similar class missions.  It would appear that you (Ball) cannot provide a flight system platform that serious PIs view as adding value to their science.  Discovery missions were never there to allow less (or non-) experienced spacecraft providers to gain experience at the taxpayers expense.  The fact that LM continues to be the spacecraft provider of choice in a competitive environment is because they deliver on their commitments (performance, schedule, cost).  One can only surmise based on Ball’s performance to date on these missions that they cannot deliver in a similar manner.  Further, FBC is dead and gone.  If that is Ball’s selling point to potential PIs, then it is no wonder you continue to ring up zeros.

      • Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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         The fact that LM continues to be the spacecraft provider of choice … is because they deliver on their commitments
        (performance, schedule, cost).

        That’s only true if you start counting the missions after LM crashed into Mars twice.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        I think that most of the above comments, taken together, simply support what is inescapable — in the NASA world, where a little more time or money can always seemingly be found, PIs and program managers are going to make their choices based on risk management and likelihood of success, with other considerations, like the level playing field concept and even cost, being far back in second place. Nothing succeeds like success, so LM is in all likelihood going to keep on getting the lion’s share of these contracts. Overall, that is quite likely saving NASA and the taxpayers money.

        Steve

      • Stuart J. Gray says:
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        “One can only surmise based on Ball’s performance to date on these missions that they cannot deliver in a similar manner.”

        So you are making the claim that Deep Impact and Kepler were failures or over budget (at least the ball portion)??

      • Stuart J. Gray says:
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        RockyMtnSpace, I just could not let this one go.
        “One can only surmise based on Ball’s performance to date on these missions that they cannot deliver in a similar manner.”

        Following is a SHORT list of recent Ball accomlishments, please tell me of just ONE failure (of Ball’s hardware):

        Quickscat
        Worldview-1
        Worldview-2
        Hubble – ACS, COS, WFC, COSTAR
        Calipso
        Cloudsat
        MER
        Deep Impact
        Shuttle trackers
        Shuttle cryo tanks
        MRO-HIRISE
        OSO
        Spitzer
        AXAF
        Kepler
        SBSS
        Orbital Express
        WISE
        STP-SIV
        Cloudsat
        Icesat

        I will be waiting while you do your homework….
        In 12 years at Ball I do not know of ONE failure of Ball hardware that resulted in loss of mission. In fact I know of at least one mission where the ball hardware SAVED the mission when it was not designed to do so…

    • RockyMtnSpace says:
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      “So you are making the claim that Deep Impact and Kepler were failures or over budget (at least the ball portion)??”

      Have to respond at this level as the lower level appears to be closed to replies.

      Per your question above; no, that is not what I am saying.  You are complaining here (and in previous posts) that it is unfair that LM is always selected as the SC provider.  This despite the fact that these missions are competed and Ball has the exact same opportunity as LM to win a mission be it Discovery, Mars Scout (now defunct by the way due to MSL), or New Frontiers.  My statement was directed at the fact that Ball has not been successful over the last several AO cycles whereas LM has all but run the table in terms of the Phase A concept studies that ultimately lead to a flight mission; namely NF II (LM on both Moonrise and Juno), Mars Scout (MAVEN (LM) and TGE (Orbital)), Discovery 2008 (Vesper, OSIRIS, GRAIL, all LM), NF III (Moonrise, SAGE, OSIRIS-REx, all LM), Discovery 2010 (Insight, TiME, CHopper, all LM).  Given that string of LM successes (and Ball failures assuming it was teamed on competing missions as you implied), it is clear that Ball is unable to convince the PI community that it is a serious spacecraft provider.

      • Stuart J. Gray says:
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        “Per your question above; no, that is not what I am saying.”

        Sorry missed this post before posting my latest.

  8. rob_818 says:
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    The previous costs are sunk costs so are therefore irrelevant.  But as usual since it’s JPL related, Keith is negative about it (he is the same about all GSFC stories).  If it were NASA Ames related, it would be great news. 

    • kcowing says:
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      And (sigh) you have no self-control, so you cannot stop yourself from reading NASA Watch so as to see this horrible bias …

      • Ken Hampton says:
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        Well, this site does a very good job of capturing the good and the bad that is NASA.  I think it just frustrates some to see how you always find a way to bash JPL, even when they win.  Come on Keith, isn’t it obvious that re-using the Phoenix bus will save money?  How do you think commercial GEO s/c companies ever make money?  They fly same stuff over and over.  They just change the payloads.  Same idea here, just applied to a Discovery mission. 

        • kcowing says:
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          Then why is NASA unable to quantify these “savings”? If you cannot figure out how much was saved, then how do you know that you have saved anything?

          • Helen Simpson says:
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            Although one would like to have the savings quantified, as in dollars saved, it seems to me that in a mission that will be actively competed, that’s really hard to do. You’d be telling the prospective contractors that THIS is how much we expect it to cost. That’s not FAR-compliant. While there is an established budget wedge for Discovery, that’s a pretty flexible number, since it appears only in runouts, and there is no Congressional commitment to it.

            To the extent the budget wedge is held firm, the savings achieved can simply translate into mission performance. They can do more than they thought they could otherwise afford to do. How much more? Well, that will depend on the skill and creativity of the contractor. But I think it’s fair to make even a qualitative statement that lessons learned on previous missions are likely to benefit this new one. That’s not fiscal acumen, but just smart management.

          • Ken Hampton says:
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             Very well put Helen.

      • rob_818 says:
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        It’s not a “horrible” bias but it does get old.  Everyone has friends and favors their friends.  Pete Worden gives you your all access badge to ARC and you get to hang with Dennis outside the fence in the research park.  Pretty smart of Pete if you ask me – he gets favorable treatment in your commentary.

        All Discovery missions have existing hardware in their proposals from previous mission spares.  Those savings can be significant, but not as significant as a reused previously designed, tested, and flown spacecraft.  The labor savings are significant.  It’s good for JPL and great for the taxpayer.  Are you suggesting they should start from scratch on every mission?  Why is the amount of cost savings so important?

  9. SpaceTas says:
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    Just after the Mars Polar lander crashed I asked Ed Weiler if there were any plans to refly. His reply was that the technology/specs etc were the property of the company, and so a reflight wasn’t conteplated. So now LockeedMartin has got 3 spacecraft out of 1 design + 1 failure analysis (paid for separately I suspect).

    Anybody know of other mostly recycled science missions?

    • Ken Hampton says:
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       It would imprecise to call these “recycled science missions.”  It is more precise to say they are “re-used spacecraft buses.”  The instruments change each time, so to does the science.

  10. Ken Hampton says:
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     Dawn’s overruns were hardly outrageous.  JWST is outrageous. Dawn was annoying.  At best.

  11. Ken Hampton says:
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     That’s right.  The entire idea of cost incentives for Discovery missions seems a bit whacky due to the economic distortions it introduces. 

  12. Anonymous says:
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    You’re missing an LM mission (not sure if it’s Genesis, Stardust, or Lunar Prospector based on your ordering). 

  13. Stuart J. Gray says:
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    I have no idea what “As far as your history, it is almost completely wrong” means since I worked the following programs:
    LMA – MGS, Stardust, MO98, ML98, Genesis
    Ball – MER, Deep Impact, Kepler, NPP

  14. Paul451 says:
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    Elysium, about 1000km away? At 140m/hr, that’s a solid year’s hard travel. So it’s definitely do-able. Probably need to start now to allow for difficult terrain and detours, though.

  15. SpaceTeacher says:
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    I wonder how much politics played into this selection—quieting those who felt
    that NASA was abandoning Mars in the coming budget years.

  16. Mader Levap says:
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    Shame. I was personally rooting for TiME.