The gloomy budget climate causes plenty of hand-wringing at NASA over possible future missions — missions such as a Mars sample return, or one to constrain dark energy. But currently operating missions are under the gun, too.
To that end, NASA conducts “senior reviews” every two years, where operating missions compete against each other and are judged by a panel of space scientists on their science capability per dollar. The resulting ranking advises NASA on which missions to augment, and which ones to cut. On 13 October, NASA’s acting astrophysics division director Geoff Yoder told astronomers at an NSF meeting that he was ready to begin a senior review for 2012.
It will be tougher competition than last time. In 2010, 11 missions competed — but there were several aging, obvious missions to phase out, like RXTE and GALEX. This time, there are nine missions, and among them in the room is an elephant: the recently refurbished Hubble Space Telescope. “The smaller projects shouldn’t be worried that they’re going to be gobbled up by Hubble,” says Yoder.
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