PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION 
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011

Contact: Diane Ainsworth

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                             May 25, 1995

BOLD NEW SPACEFLIGHT TECHNOLOGIES IN REVIEW FOR 21st CENTURY    

     NASA review teams have begun to winnow more than 230 
proposals from industry, universities and other organizations 
seeking to take part in the New Millennium program, an ambitious 
new effort by the U.S. space agency to develop and demonstrate 
revolutionary technologies needed for low-cost space science 
missions of the 21st century. 

     The process to select members for the program's Integrated 
Product Development Teams, which will oversee the development and 
delivery of selected advanced technologies for spaceflight 
testing, will be completed in early July.

     The New Millennium program is a bold new NASA effort focused 
on development and validation in space of advanced technologies 
needed for a fleet of small spacecraft that will explore the 
solar system, monitor Earth and observe the cosmos. 
Constellations or networks of spacecraft, carrying instruments 
sometimes as small as a dime, will be designed to study phenomena 
occurring in Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses, as well 
as astronomical events in the solar system and beyond.

      "Revolutionary technologies, spacecraft designs and 
operations concepts now undergoing review, will lead to a 
reduction of total mission costs and enhance the capabilities of 
Earth and space science missions in the next century," said Kane 
Casani, manager of the program at NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory, which was designated by NASA to manage the program. 

     The proposals now under review cover a wide range of 
imaginative technologies that will enable NASA to launch focused 
space and Earth science missions as often as once a month by 
early in the next century, Casani said.

     The New Millennium program is structured around a series of 
space missions designed to validate new technologies and 
operations techniques through actual flight testing, much like a 
test track is used in the automobile industry. Mission concepts 
now being considered include flybys of asteroids and comets, 
Earth-observing networks and constellations, as well as a 
microlander destined for Mars, the moon or near-Earth asteroids. 

     One of the potential missions would use a solar electric 
propulsion system, responding to widespread interest in 
demonstrating this technology, given its small size and weight 
compared to traditional chemical propulsion systems.  

      These missions would demonstrate prototypes of highly 
sophisticated instruments designed to achieve specific scientific 
goals. One concept in review, for instance, is a free-flying 
interferometer, an optical science instrument that combines light 
from several  telescopes that would be flying in formation with 
each other into one unified image. The mission would demonstrate 
the technologies and operating techniques for subsequent missions 
that should be able to detect and characterize planets in other 
solar systems.

     The Jet Propulsion Laboratory solicited proposals in April 
from industry, academia and nonprofit research organizations for 
membership on the Integrated Product Development Teams. That 
solicitation included four of the five New Millennium program 
primary areas of research and development: autonomy, 
microelectronics, communications, and modular architectures and 
multifunctional systems.  Solicitation for the fifth area -- 
instruments and micro, electro and mechanical systems -- was 
issued in mid-May. 

     The solicitation for proposals was mailed to 300 
organizations and announced in Commerce Business Daily to ensure 
wide dissemination. The review teams received their copies of the 
proposals during the first week in May and gathered again in mid-
May to choose the candidates for review team site visits at the 
proposers' institutions. The site visits will be completed by the 
end of May.  Selection of non-government team members will follow 
the site visits and final approval of the team members will be 
announced in June. 

     The New Millennium program is the core of the "better, 
faster, cheaper" philosophy of the Clinton Administration and 
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, who has stated that the 
program should precipitate a revolution in space science and 
exploration.

     NASA will pick three demonstration missions developed by New 
Millennium program teams and announce those mission selections by 
the end of the summer. The first experimental mission will fly in 
late 1997 or early 1998 and the two remaining missions will 
follow at approximately one-year intervals.

     "An important element of the program is the creation of 
partnerships with industry," Casani said.  "These partnerships 
will be set up to identify and develop innovative technology 
solutions to NASA's needs. The approach is a departure from our 
traditional style in the past of subcontracting system and 
subsystem fabrication to private industry, based on designs 
developed by NASA." 

     The program will also draw on the involvement of small and 
disadvantaged businesses, academia and other government agencies, 
Casani added.

     Working on the New Millennium program at the Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory with Kane Casani is Dr. Barbara Wilson, deputy manager 
of the program, and Dr. Ellen Stofan, program scientist. 

     The New Millennium program is managed by the Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Office of Space 
Access and Technology, and Office of Mission to Planet Earth, 
Washington, D.C.

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5/25/95 DEA
#9533