February 28, 2003

To: CIT/ E. Stone, Voyager Project Scientist and ACE PI

GSFC/ B. Dennis, RHESSI Project Scientist

GSFC/ B. Giles, Polar Project Scientist

GSFC/ R. Goldberg, TIMED Project Scientist

GSFC/ M. Goldstein, Cluster Project Scientist

GSFC/ J. Gurman, SOHO and TRACE Project Scientist

GSFC/ T. Moore, IMAGE Project Scientist

GSFC/ K. Ogilvie, Wind Project Scientist

GSFC/ R. Pfaff, FAST Project Scientist

GSFC/ T. von Rosenvinge, ACE and SAMPEX Project Scientist

JHU/APL/ J-H. Yee, APL TIMED Project Scientist

JPL/ E. Smith, Ulysses Project Scientist

JPL/ P. Liewer, Genesis/Exodus Project Scientist

> LANL/ R.Wiens, Genesis Flight Payload Lead
>
> LMSAL/ A. Title, TRACE PI

SWRI/ J. Burch, IMAGE PI

UCB/ C. Carlson, FAST PI

UCB/ R. Lin, RHESSI PI

UMD/ G. Mason, SAMPEX PI

From: NASA HQ/SS/ C. Holmes/Program Executive for Science Operations

Subject: Call for Proposals - Senior Review 2003 of the Mission
Operations and Data Analysis Program for the Sun-Earth Connection
operating missions

### Background:

As a matter of policy, NASA's Office of Space Science (OSS) periodically
conducts comparative reviews of Mission Operations and Data Analysis
(MO&DA) programs to maximize the scientific return from these programs
within finite resources. The acronym "MO&DA" encompasses operating
missions, data analysis from current and past missions, and supporting
science and data archive centers. At the present time, more than 30
missions are returning science data for three space science divisions
and one space science office: Astronomy and Physics (A&P) Division, The
Sun-Earth Connection (SEC) Division, Solar System Exploration (SSE)
Division, and Mars Exploration Program (MEP) Office.

NASA will host the next MO&DA "Senior Review" \-- a comparative science
review of SEC MO&DA projects \-- during the summer of 2003. This will be
the twelfth review of its type for the Office of Space Science. It is
the highest level of peer review within the Space Science program. This
letter describes the objectives and process for the review, and contains
instructions for the submission of proposals and in-person presentations
to the review panel.

### Relevance to the Space Science Enterprise Strategic Plan:

The Space Science Enterprise Strategic Plan, published in November 2000
and available through the Office of Space Science website
(<http://spacescience.nasa.gov/admin/pubs/index.htm>) represents the
results of extensive discussions by the space science community,
crystallized into enterprise goals, science objectives, and research
focus areas. The goals, objectives, and focus areas contained in the
Space Science Enterprise Strategic Plan will be used as science context
for the Senior Review 2003. The OSS Strategic Plan is currently
undergoing an update. Inputs to this process can be found in the report
of the 2002 Sun-Earth Connection (SEC) Roadmapping Committee: *Sun-Earth
Connection Roadmap 2003-2028*
(<http://sec.gsfc.nasa.gov/sec_roadmap.htm>). Particular attention
should be paid to Section II of the Roadmap which is a discussion of the
SEC objectives and research focus areas (RFAs).

### Purpose of the Senior Review:

The purpose of this comparative review is to assist NASA in maximizing
the scientific productivity of the SEC MO&DA Program. NASA will use
recommendations from the Senior Review to

-   define an implementation strategy;

-   give programmatic direction to the missions and projects concerned
    for 2004 and 2005; and

-   issue preliminary, tentative guidelines for 2006 and 2007 (to be
    reviewed in 2005).

### The SEC Senior Review:

To maximize the scientific return from its missions, NASA routinely
seeks the advice and counsel of the scientific community. Working groups
and user groups deal with NASA's Space Science program by focusing on
discipline- or theme-wide, sub-discipline, or mission-specific issues.
All proposals for use of missions or data are thoroughly peer-reviewed.
The Senior Review, held every two years by an ad hoc panel, complements
the standing working groups and other peer reviews by conducting an
independent, comparative evaluation of mission research programs. The
Senior Review evaluates proposals for continued funding for many
missions and projects. The execution of the FY 2002 and 2003 SEC MO&DA
program closely follows many of the recommendations from the 2001 SEC
Senior Review (see
<http://spacescience.nasa.gov/admin/divisions/ss/index.htm>.)

The 2003 SEC Senior Review will assess the science merits of thirteen
SEC missions (in alphabetical order): ACE, Cluster[^1], FAST, IMAGE,
Polar, RHESSI, SAMPEX, SOHO^∗^, TIMED, TRACE, Ulysses^∗^, Voyager, Wind
plus the proposed Genesis/Exodus mission. We have decided to review
multi-mission data archives less frequently than mission projects; the
SEC data centers were reviewed in 2001 and will not be reviewed in
2003.An emphasis for the 2003 SEC senior review will be the performance
of the instruments on the multi-instrument flight missions. Performance
factors are to include scientific productivity, technical status, data
dissemination, and budget.

### Charter for this Senior Review:

In the following descriptions, "project" may denote a full mission or
MO&DA project in the traditional sense or U.S. participation on a
mission led by an international partner. NASA charters the Senior Review
panel to:

(1) In the context of the science goals, objectives and research focus
    areas described in the Space Science Enterprise Strategic Plan, rank
    the scientific merits - on a "science per dollar" basis - of the
    expected returns from the projects reviewed during 2004 and 2005.

(2) Assess the cost efficiency, technology development and
    dissemination, data collection, archiving and distribution, and
    education/outreach as secondary evaluation criteria, after science
    merit.

(3) Based on (1) and (2), recommend an implementation strategy for SEC
    MO&DA for 2004 and 2005, and include a mix of

-   continuation of projects "as currently baselined";

-   continuation of projects with either enhancements or reductions to
    the current baseline;

-   mission extensions beyond the prime mission phase, subject to the
    "Mission Extension Paradigm" described below; or

-   project terminations.

(4), (5) and (6): Make preliminary assessments equivalent to (1), (2),
and (3) for the period 2006 and 2007.

### Funding Environment:

The recently signed FY-03 appropriation and the FY-04 President's budget
request are providing for approximately level support to the SEC MO&DA
program. The new feature in the budget request is that starting in FY-04
civil servant salaries and certain center-wide expenses will be
allocated to the ongoing projects including flight mission accounts.
Funds for these new 'full-cost' allocations will be added to project
accounts. For the SEC MO&DA program this effects all projects more or
less at GSFC and MSFC.

The full-cost accounting approach does [not]{.underline} allocate to the
projects certain mission operations expenses such as tracking by the
Deep Space Network nor support from multimission infrastructure projects
such as the Advanced Multimission Operations System (AMMOS) at JPL and
the Space Science Mission Operations (SSMO) multimission project at
GSFC. The tracking networks and multimission projects will continue to
be funded by separate line items in the NASA budget. Nevertheless you
will be providing a 'cost attribution' in your proposal budget
representing the value to your project for employing the NASA-provided
tracking networks and center-wide mission operations infrastructure.
(See Appendix B: the SR03 budget template.)

The Consolidated Space Operations Contract (CSOC) terminates at the end
of December 2003. NASA is pursuing center-oriented contracts to provide
services and support currently provided by CSOC. In particular, GSFC is
pursuing the Mission Operations and Mission Services Support contract
(MOMS) which will provide the mission operations support for flight
operations teams, spacecraft control centers, flight dynamics support,
etc. to many of the missions proposing to the senior review. The costs
for the MOMS support as well as any costs for the transition from CSOC
to MOMS are unknown at this time. The MOMS contractor will be selected
after the Senior Review. However the SSMO office has estimates for these
costs which at this time are the best available and may be used in your
proposals. I am on the Headquarters procurement development team for
this procurement activity and will maintain a close watch on the
development of the new contract support.

Note that starting in FY-04 the costs for certain 'tail circuits' used
by some of the SEC missions are to be funded by those projects. The SSMO
staff at GSFC and the staff for Deep Space Mission Systems (DSMS) at JPL
are prepared to identify these circuits and the projected costs for
these circuits. Projects are encouraged to take steps to reduce or
eliminate the costs for these tail circuits.

### Schedule for the Senior Review

The schedule for this review is as follows:

Draft Call for Proposals issued: December 3, 2002

Call for Proposals issued: February 28, 2003

Proposals due: April 30, 2003

Senior Review: June 10 - 13, 2003 (Presentations on June 10 and 11)

Publication of recommendations

and instructions to projects: July-August 2003

### Further Information Required for the Senior Review Deliberations:

After submission of proposals, members of the Senior Review panel may
have further questions or requests for clarification. If that is the
case, then identical requests for further information will be sent to
all missions/projects prior to the in-person panel review.

An area of emphasis for this Senior Review is the
availability/accessibility of the mission's processed science data and
associated software tools. The panel will be asked to consult summaries
of mission data availability posted at
<http://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/SPD.html> Mission staffs and instrument teams
are requested to ensure that the summaries are accurate and up to date.

As part of your proposal submission, we request that you provide an
on-line bibliography of recent publications. Your proposal should
contain the URL/web address to the bibliography. The bibliography should
be listed in sequence with the most recent refereed publications first.
Rather than list all papers for the life of the mission, the
bibliography should contain, as a minimum, the most recent papers over
the past two or three years. It is all right to list
papers/presentations to AGU meetings, conferences, workshops, PhD
theses, etc, but these should be listed separately from the listing of
the refereed papers.

### Mission Extension Paradigm:

The Office of Space Science published guidance on the conditions for
mission extensions in January 1994. This document can be found at
<http://explorer.larc.nasa.gov/explorer/OSS_mission_extension.pdf>.
According to these instructions, budgets for mission extensions beyond
the prime mission lifetime will support:

> [Bare-bones mission operation and science operations]{.underline}:
> Compared to the prime mission phase, a significantly higher risk and
> lower data collection efficiency will be accepted during any mission
> extension, and this portion of the MO&DA budget for the extended phase
> shall have a funding level of roughly one-half of the equivalent
> portion during the prime mission phase.
>
> [Bare-bones data handling, including low-level processing and basic
> archiving]{.underline}: Compared to the prime mission phase, fewer
> services will be offered to Guest Observers and Guest Investigators
> who are assumed to have become more knowledgeable during the mission's
> prime phase, and this portion of the MO&DA budget for the extended
> phase shall also have a funding level of roughly one-half of the
> equivalent portion during the prime mission phase.
>
> [Minimal science data analysis]{.underline}: Priority is given to
> maintain understanding of the instrument performance, to monitor
> progress toward accomplishing the objectives of science observations,
> and to involve the science community in formulating the mission
> observing program to make the best scientific use of NASA's SEC
> missions; however, no funds will be available in this "minimal-science
> analysis mode" for detailed analysis, data fitting, modeling, and
> interpretation.
>
> [Guest investigator and other SEC research programs]{.underline}: The
> Sun-Earth Connection theme sponsors several competitive research
> programs that support theory, data analysis and "guest
> investigations". We have found that these programs can provide an
> alternative source of support to those investigators who encounter
> reduced mission-funding support as a result of general reductions to
> mission budgets.

### Instructions to Proposers:

The written proposal shall contain a science section, a technical/budget
section, and an education/public outreach (E/PO) section. The addition
of an explicit E/PO section represents a change from the previous Senior
Review. The scientific plus the technical/budget sections should be no
more than 30 pages of writing and graphics. The E/PO section should be
no longer than 4 pages of writing and graphics. All pages are to be on
8.5 inch by 11 in paper, with character size not less than 10 points.
Print(copy) the proposals double-sided. Thus if the scientific,
technical/budget part of the proposal was 24 pages, it would be printed
on twelve 8.5 x 11 pieces of paper. An E/PO section of 3 pages would be
printed on two pieces of paper. Not included in the page limits are the
budget spreadsheets and the list of acronyms. If your institution
requires signatures, please place them onto one separate submittal
letter; copies of this submittal letter will not be used in the peer
review but will be retained in the SEC Division. The project name and
names of key writers or presenters at the top of the first page will
suffice for review purposes.

### Instructions for the Science Section:

In the science section of a proposal, please describe the science merits
of your full program, and (where applicable) the specific contributions
of the various instruments within your mission. The emphasis of the
science section should be how the proposed science program will discover
and communicate new scientific knowledge in line with the SEC strategic
goals, objectives, and research focus areas. The science proposal should
list the current science objectives for the mission and (where
appropriate) a summary of what has been accomplished in past two to
three years. The reporting of results to the scientific community via
refereed journal articles and other means should be summarized, and
should be done in a way to make it possible to assess the productivity
over the last few years. The scientific merit of the program is the
chief criterion used to determine ranking.

### Instructions for the Technical/Budget Section:

This section should begin with a discussion of the overall technical
status of the components of the mission. These should include the
spacecraft, instruments, ground system including spacecraft control
center and science center(s). The discussion should summarize the health
of the components and point out limitations as a result of degradation,
aging, use of consumables, obsolescence, etc.

A feature of interest will be the steps that your mission may be taking
towards supporting a distributed environment for accessing and
integrating SEC data. In other words what plans/activities/studies has
your mission/instrument team been considering/undertaking for building
data schemata, web data services, participating in virtual observatory
consortia, etc.

The second part of this section should discuss the proposed budgets. As
noted above, NASA will be transitioning to full-cost accounting,
including accounting for civil servant salaries. You are instructed to
provide your budgets in this 'full-cost' form.

You are instructed to show, in an appropriate summary manner,
anticipated 'in kind' support from [NASA]{.underline} sources other than
the project's MO&DA budget. These 'in kind' sources include tracking
support from the NASA tracking networks and support from the
multimission infrastructure projects at GSFC and JPL. Representations of
direct or in-kind funding from international partners or from other US
Government agencies [should not]{.underline} be provided.

Labor, major equipment, and other expenses for both the in-guideline
scenario and the requested/optimal scenario must be explained in
sufficient detail to determine the incremental cost of each proposed
task. The budget must include any project-specific costs including
mission services rendered by the SSMO at GSFC or by the DSMS at JPL; the
guidelines should already include these costs.

Attachment B contains instructions and the mandatory form for the budget
portion of each proposal. This form will serve as a standard budget
summary for all proposals; it is assumed that each proposal will contain
further details in a format as determined by each project. For the
period under consideration in this Senior Review, FY04 -- FY07, two
scenarios should be summarized in the mandatory form and described in
the technical/budget proposal: an "In-Guideline" Scenario and a
"Requested/Optimal" Scenario.

For the "In-Guideline" Scenario: If the current budget guideline for
your project (part of the current NASA operating plan) for any of the
fiscal years is larger than zero, then describe a plan which meets that
guideline. If the project believes that the current budget guideline is
sub-minimal, the project should identify the impact of the current
in-guideline budget on the science return for the mission. If the
current budget guideline for your project for any of the fiscal years is
zero, and you propose operations during that year, then describe a
minimal program at an acceptable risk level. This minimal scenario
should indicate the minimum viable funding level for your project to the
Senior Review and to NASA. By identifying the minimum acceptable funding
level, you are indicating that any lower funding level is untenable, and
that the project should be terminated rather than funded at a
sub-minimal level.

For the Requested/Optimal Scenario you may describe a funding level that
leads to a higher science return from the project, but still recognizes
the very tight fiscal constraints that NASA faces. In other words, the
requested/optimal scenario should be a carefully considered request, not
a maximal request. The technical/science description of this scenario
should address the added scope and expected benefits compared to the
in-guideline scenario. The added science return from the
requested/optimal scenario over the in-guideline scenario should be
clearly identified. The added science return should be clearly connected
to the additional budget required (over the current budget guideline) so
that the Senior Review can recommend none, some, or all of the added
science return and estimate the budget required for partially funding
the proposed increases.

The budget spreadsheet also provides tables for 'in kind' support and
for instrument team budgets. The format for the tables for the
'In-Guideline', 'Requested/Optimal', and the 'in-kind' budgets follow
the 4-way breakdown described in Appendix A. The format for
'instrument-breakdown' table does not follow the 4-way breakdown. The FY
totals for the instrument breakdown representation should equal the FY
total for the Requested/Optimal program.

### Instructions for the Education/Public Outreach Section:

In the E/PO section of a proposal, please summarize your E/PO
accomplishments over the past two years. Where possible, characterize
your accomplishments against the criteria used for evaluating E/PO
programs within the Office of Space Science (select "Education" on the
OSS website at <http://spacescience.nasa.gov/>. Describe your plans for
the period covered by this proposal. Tie your E/PO budget request to
those plans.

### Required Appendices

Two appendices are required and do not count against the page limit:

-   Standard budget in the mandatory format. Attachment B describes the
    mandatory format for your budget request. A spreadsheet template
    accompanies this call for proposals; use it. \[The completed budget
    spreadsheet must be e-mailed to <Charles.P.Holmes@nasa.gov>.\]

-   Acronym list. Include a full list of all acronyms with their
    designations spelled out.

### Proposal Submission:

Fifteen copies of the proposal must be received by 4:00 PM EDT on the
due date, April 30, 2003, at:

SEC MO&DA Senior Review

NASA Peer Review Services

500 E Street SW, Suite 200

Washington DC 20024

Telephone: 202-479-9030

FAX: 202-479-0511

The spreadsheet containing the budget submissions in the mandatory
format must be e-mailed to <Charles.P.Holmes@nasa.gov> prior to 4:00
p.m. EDT on the proposal due date. Do not send the proposal via email.

### Panel Review Process:

The Senior Review panel will meet for four days:

Day 1:

Morning: Charter; discussion of conflicts of interest and procedures to
minimize their impacts; logistics (writing

assignments, etc.), background, comparisons.

Rest of day: Project presentations plus questions and answers (time
assignments TBD)

Day 2:

Morning: complete project presentations;

Rest of day: Senior Review Panel begins Charter Tasks (1) through (6)

Days 3 and 4:

Senior Review Panel completes Charter Tasks (1) through (6)

### Presentations to the Review Panel:

Each proposing project will be allotted 30 minutes for an oral
presentation to the senior review panel. To minimize the burden on
projects, no more than a total of three persons may represent any one of
the projects. During each project presentation, the project
representatives should plan on using one-half of the allocated time for
their prepared presentation, and reserving one-half for questions and
answers.

-   The primary purpose of the oral presentations is to provide a forum
    for questions from panelists and answers from the projects.

-   Secondarily, this is an opportunity for projects to provide any
    significant updates, e.g. science results obtained since proposal
    submission.

-   Lastly, and with lowest priority, it is an opportunity to repeat
    highlights of the proposals, which have, of course, been read by all
    panelists.

The Program Scientists should work with their respective Project
Scientists/Principal Investigators to determine the best participation
of Project, science center (where appropriate), and user community
(where appropriate), in both the written proposal and oral presentation
to the Senior Review Panel.

### Further Information

For further information, you may contact me via e-mail at
<Charles.P.Holmes@nasa.gov>.

Charles P. Holmes

Office of Space Science/Sun-Earth Connection Division

NASA Headquarters / Code SS

300 E St. S.W.

Washington, DC 20546-0001

Phone: (202) 358-2224

FAX: (202) 358-3987

## Attachment A:. Definitions of Four-Way Breakdown for Space Science MO&DA Programs:

NOTE: This Four-Way Breakdown is a modification of that used by the
Office of Space Science since 1998 for Program Operating Plan (POP)
guidelines and senior reviews.

It is not possible to create a general functional breakdown which can
apply to the work-breakdown structures of every flight project. This is
intended as a guide for the purpose of identifying funding activities.
Projects may modify the breakdown below to fit the project's particular
situation. Please note your modifications in the text section of the
proposal describing the budget.

#### Development

> Instrument Development for future instrument replacements
>
> Astronaut training for servicing missions
>
> Development of MO&DA elements for \"Great Observatory\" class missions
> prior to launch
>
> Development of multi-user ground segments for planetary missions
>
> Development of post-launch flight software and ground systems.
>
> For science data centers: development of new capabilities, software
> tools, technology enhancements,
>
> improved services, etc.

#### Mission Operations: \"Control Center\" and communications functions including:

##### 2A. Data Services: 

> Antenna operations for
>
> Prepass and postpass tracking operations
>
> Spacecraft commanding and telemetry tracking, including radiometric
> data
>
> TDRSS support
>
> Telecommunication services such as the use of dedicated circuits (tail
> circuits) or the use of local area networks.

##### 2B. Mission Services 

> Command generation and telemetry monitoring
>
> Health and performance monitoring of the spacecraft, instruments, and
> ground system
>
> Spacecraft trajectory or orbit, and attitude planning and
> determination
>
> Resource constraints analysis (spacecraft power, data storage,
> telemetry rates, TDRSS, DSN, etc.)
>
> Mission analysis and planning/scheduling activities

##### 2C. Other mission operations including

> Project management and accounting functions (include education and
> public outreach, if executed by Project staff)
>
> Mission system engineering

#### Sequence Generation, Science Planning & Data Processing: "Science Center" functions including:

> Science events planning, integration, and optimization
>
> Science and engineering activity integration
>
> Instrument and observation performance analysis
>
> Mission science center
>
> Services for guest observers/guest investigators
>
> Science data calibration/physical unit conversion
>
> Validation and certification of processed data
>
> Data products distribution to investigators for analysis
>
> Science teams products for science data processing
>
> Generation of quick-look and common pool data sets
>
> Standard data processing
>
> Mission data archiving (performed by mission science center)
>
> Multi-mission data centers

#### Science Data Analysis: "Science" functions

> Customized Data Processing
>
> Analysis activities
>
> Writing and editing documentation
>
> Presentation and publication of scientific results
>
> Data archiving (performed by PI teams)
>
> Education and public outreach (if executed by science teams or outside
> scientists)

## Attachment B:. Enclosed MS Excel file: 'SR03_Std_Spreadsheet' \[w/ instructions contained in the file\].

[^1]: ^^ These mission are operated jointly with the European Space
    Agency (ESA).