New Frontiers program
Encyclopedia
The New Frontiers program is a series of space exploration missions being conducted by NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 with the purpose of researching several of the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

's planets including Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

, Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...

, and the dwarf planet
Dwarf planet
A dwarf planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union , is a celestial body orbiting the Sun that is massive enough to be spherical as a result of its own gravity but has not cleared its neighboring region of planetesimals and is not a satellite...

 Pluto
Pluto
Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...

. NASA is encouraging both domestic and international scientists to submit mission proposals for the project.

New Frontiers was built on the innovative approach used by the Discovery
Discovery Program
NASA's Discovery Program is a series of lower-cost, highly-focused American scientific space missions that are exploring the Solar System. It was founded in 1992 to implement then-NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin's vision of "faster, better, cheaper" planetary missions...

 and Explorer
Explorer program
The Explorer program is a United States space exploration program that provides flight opportunities for physics, heliophysics, and astrophysics investigations from space. Over 90 space missions have been launched from 1958 to 2011, and it is still active...

 Programs of principal investigator
Principal investigator
A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

-led missions. It is designed for medium-class missions that cannot be accomplished within the cost and time constraints of Discovery, but are not as large as Flagship-class missions. There are two current New Frontiers missions, New Horizons
New Horizons
New Horizons is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission currently en route to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, Hydra and S/2011 P 1. Its estimated arrival date at the Pluto-Charon system is July 14th, 2015...

 which launched on January 19, 2006, and Juno
Juno (spacecraft)
Juno is a NASA New Frontiers mission to the planet Jupiter. Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5, 2011. The spacecraft is to be placed in a polar orbit to study the planet's composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere...

 which launched on August 5, 2011.

History

The New Frontiers Program was developed, advocated, and successfully proposed by NASA and the Administration and granted by Congress in CY 2002 and 2003. This effort was led by two long-time NASA executives at Headquarters at that time: Dr. Edward Weiler, Associate Administrator of Science and Dr. Colleen Hartman, Solar System Exploration Division Director. The mission to Pluto had already been selected before this program was successfully endorsed and funded, so the mission to Pluto, called New Horizons, was "grandfathered" into the New Frontiers program. The 2003 Decadal Survey from the National Academy of Sciences identified destinations that then served as the source of the first competition for the New Frontiers Program. The program name was selected by Dr. Hartman based on President John F. Kennedy's speech in 1960, in which he said "We stand, today, on the edge of a New Frontier."

New Horizons

New Horizons
New Horizons
New Horizons is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission currently en route to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, Hydra and S/2011 P 1. Its estimated arrival date at the Pluto-Charon system is July 14th, 2015...

, a mission to Pluto
Pluto
Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...

, was launched on January 19, 2006, and is on its way to the dwarf planet. After a Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

 gravity assist in February 2007 the craft has continued towards Pluto. The primary mission flyby will occur in July 2015 and then the spacecraft will be targeted toward one or more additional Kuiper Belt
Kuiper belt
The Kuiper belt , sometimes called the Edgeworth–Kuiper belt, is a region of the Solar System beyond the planets extending from the orbit of Neptune to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, although it is far larger—20 times as wide and 20 to 200 times as massive...

 objects between 2015 and 2020.

Juno

Juno
Juno (spacecraft)
Juno is a NASA New Frontiers mission to the planet Jupiter. Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5, 2011. The spacecraft is to be placed in a polar orbit to study the planet's composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere...

 is a Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

 exploration mission launched on August 5, 2011. It is the first solar-powered spacecraft to explore an outer planet. The craft will attain a polar orbit
Polar orbit
A polar orbit is an orbit in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited on each revolution. It therefore has an inclination of 90 degrees to the equator...

 in order to study the planet's magnetic field
Magnetic field
A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...

 and internal structure.
NASA’s Galileo
Galileo spacecraft
Galileo was an unmanned spacecraft sent by NASA to study the planet Jupiter and its moons. Named after the astronomer and Renaissance pioneer Galileo Galilei, it was launched on October 18, 1989 by the Space Shuttle Atlantis on the STS-34 mission...

 mission to Jupiter provided extensive knowledge about its upper atmosphere. However, further study of Jupiter is crucial not only to the understanding of its origin and nature of the solar system, but also of giant extrasolar planets in general. This proposal submits for spacecraft investigations that can achieve the majority of the following objectives for Jupiter:
  • Understand Jupiter’s gross dynamical and structural properties through determination of the mass and size of Jupiter’s core, its gravitational and magnetic fields, and internal convection;
  • Measure the Jovian atmospheric composition, particularly the condensable-gas abundances (H2O, NH3, CH4 and H2S), the Jovian atmospheric temperature profile, wind velocity profile, and cloud opacity to greater depths than achieved by the Galileo entry probe with a goal of 100 bar at multiple latitudes; and
  • Investigate and characterize the three-dimensional structure of Jupiter’s polar magnetosphere.

New Frontiers 3

On May 25, 2011, NASA selected The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer spacecraft (OSIRIS-REx
OSIRIS-REx
Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer is a planetary science mission, the third selected in the New Frontiers Program. The mission will study and return a sample of a carbonaceous asteroid to Earth for detailed analyses in about 2023...

) as the 3rd New Frontiers mission. This mission will rendezvous and orbit a primitive asteroid, 1999 RQ36, in 2020. After extensive measurements, instruments would collect material from the asteroid's surface for return to Earth in 2023. The mission, excluding the launch vehicle, is expected to cost approximately $800 million. The returned samples will help scientists better understand and answer long-held questions about the formation of our solar system and the origin of complex molecules necessary for life.

New Frontiers 4

The next New Frontiers mission will be selected during the decade 2013-2022. Based on their science value and projected costs, the 2013 Planetary Science Decadal Survey committee identified five candidate New Frontiers missions.

Venus In Situ Explorer

The Venus In Situ Explorer would study the composition and surface properties of Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...

. The primary science objectives of this mission would be to examine the physics and chemistry of Venus’s atmosphere and crust. The mission should attempt to characterize variables that cannot be measured from orbit, including the detailed composition of the lower atmosphere, and the elemental and mineralogical composition of surface materials. Had the proposed SAGE mission been selected, the Venus In Situ Explorer would have been removed from consideration.

Although the exploration of the surface and lower atmosphere of Venus provides a major technical challenge, the scientific rewards are major. Venus is Earth’s sister planet, yet its tectonics, volcanism, surface-atmospheric processes, atmospheric dynamics and chemistry are all remarkably different from those on Earth, which has resulted in remarkably different end states for its surface crust and atmosphere. While returning physical samples of its surface and/or atmosphere may not be possible within the New Frontiers cost cap, innovative approaches might achieve the majority of the following objectives:
  • Understand the physics and chemistry of Venus’ atmosphere through measurement of its composition, especially the abundances of its trace gases, light stable isotopes, and noble gas isotopes;
  • Understand the physics and chemistry of Venus’ crust through analysis of near-IR descent images from below the clouds to the surface and through measurements of elemental abundances and mineralogy from a surface sample;
  • Understand the properties of Venus’ atmosphere down to the surface through meteorological measurements and improve our understanding of Venus’ zonal cloud-level winds through temporal measurements over at least two Earth days; and
  • Understand the weathering environment of the crust of Venus in the context of the dynamics of the atmosphere of Venus and the composition and texture of its surface materials.

Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return

The Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return) would return samples of the early Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

's deep crust. Had Moonrise been selected as the 3rd New Frontiers mission, Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return would have been removed from consideration.

The surface of the South Pole-Aitken basin, located on the Moon’s far side southern polar region, is likely to contain some fraction of the mineralogy of the Moon’s lower crust. Samples of these ancient materials that are not biased by nearside impact basin formation are highly desirable to further understand the history of Earth’s Moon. Therefore, a mission to return a sufficient sample of material from the heretofore-unsampled South Pole-Aitken basin terrain, including useful samples from the deep crust of the early Moon, should accomplish (following chemical, isotopic, and petrologic analysis of returned materials as well as radiometric age dating on Earth) the majority of following science objectives:
  • Elucidate the nature of the Moon’s lower crust and mantle by direct measurements of its composition and of sample ages;
  • Determine the chronology of basin-forming impacts and constrain the period of late, heavy bombardment in the inner solar system, and thus, address fundamental questions of inner solar system impact processes and chronology;
  • Characterize a large lunar impact basin through "ground truth" validation of global, regional, and local remotely sensed data of the sampled site;
  • Elucidate the sources of thorium and other heat-producing elements in order to understand lunar differentiation and thermal evolution; and
  • Determine ages and compositions of far-side basalts to determine how mantle source regions on the far side of the Moon differ from regions sampled by Apollo and Luna basalts.

Trojan Tour and Rendezvous

The Trojan Tour and Rendezvous mission would fly by two or more Jupiter Trojans, asteroids that orbit around the L4 and L5 Lagrange points at the same distance from the sun as Jupiter, and then settle into orbit around one of them - similar goals to the Dawn mission, though significantly further from the Sun.

Comet Surface Sample Return

A Comet Surface Sample Return mission would acquire and return to Earth a macroscopic sample from the surface of a comet nucleus using a sampling technique that preserves organic material in the sample.

Detailed study of comets promises the possibility of understanding the physical condition and constituents of the very early solar system, including the early history of water and the biogenic elements and the compounds containing them. Therefore, a mission that would sample and return the dust and organics from at least one if not several locations on the surface of a comet nucleus, including one in the vicinity of an active vent, is of prime interest in order to achieve the majority of the following science objectives:
  • Understand the structure and composition of a comet through measurement of the chemical complexity of the sampled material, grain micro texture and its cohesive forces, age and composition of ices and organic and silicate grains;
  • Understand the real time dynamics and evolution of a comet’s surface under the influence of sunlight by study of the diurnal conditions of its atmosphere and surface; and
  • Investigate a comet’s overall physical structure in order to assess its internal heterogeneity.

Saturn Probe

A Saturn Probe mission would deploy a probe into Saturn’s atmosphere to determine the structure of the atmosphere as well as noble gas
Noble gas
The noble gases are a group of chemical elements with very similar properties: under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases, with very low chemical reactivity...

 abundances and isotopic
Isotopic
The word isotopic has a number of different meanings, including:* In the physical sciences, to do with chemical isotopes;* In mathematics, to do with a relation called isotopy.* In geometry, isotopic refers to facet-transitivity....

 ratios of hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...

, carbon
Carbon
Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...

, nitrogen
Nitrogen
Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...

, and oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...

. A carrier/relay craft with the probe would arrive at Saturn approximately seven years after launch. Thirty days or more before arrival, the probe separates from the carrier/relay craft. The probe would enter the atmosphere and begin measurements at 0.1 bars (a bar is the atmospheric pressure at sea level on Earth). At 1 bar, the probe would detach from its parachute for a more rapid descent to 5 bars and the end of the nominal mission after 55 minutes of data collection. The probe would be designed to survive to 10 bars, and the carrier/relay would continue to listen for as long as the entry site remains visible.

New Frontiers 5

In addition to the five mission concepts listed above, for the 5th New Frontiers mission, the 2013 Planetary Science Decadal Survey committee identified two additional candidates that will be added to the list.

Io Observer

The focus of this mission is to determine the internal structure of Io
IO
Io, IO, I/O, i/o, or i.o. may refer to:-An abbreviation:* I.O., a theater in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to improvisational comedy* i.o., "in illo ordine", Latin phrase meaning "respectively"...

 and to investigate the mechanisms that contribute to the satellite’s intense volcanic activity from a highly elliptical orbit around Jupiter, making multiple flybys of Io. This mission depends on sufficient advances in system power and radiation protection.

Lunar Geophysical Network

This mission consists of several identical landers distributed across the lunar surface, each carrying geophysical instrumentation. The primary science objectives are to characterize the Moon’s internal structure, seismic activity, global heat flow budget, bulk composition, and magnetic field
Magnetic field
A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...

. It would expand the instruments left on the surface on the moon left by Apollo program missions to include coverage of the far side of the moon as well.

External links

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