Ideas on the NASA Senior Review and Mission Extension Process

Extended mission budgets fund a significant part of our community, particularly young scientists
who in a relatively short time are exposed to a broad range of experiences and opportunities
available in space science and other STEM fields. In particular, mission-funded science offers a
relatively stable funding stream that enables meaningful mentoring efforts and interactions,
including apprenticeships ranging from project management, to mission operations, to data
processing and analysis, to hardware and software development, to STEM-related education and
outreach. It moreover provides professional contacts that fuel diversity in mission leadership and
in the science and technical workforce at-large. Last but not least, it sustains the scientific
productivity of NASA’s missions, which constitute major national investments meriting their full
exploitation. Budgets cuts, however, are exercising pressure on the science and operations of the
extended mission fleet despite being only a small portion of the overall Division budget.

The history of Heliophysics has demonstrated that maintaining the operation of missions beyond
their prime phase invariably leads to a much deeper knowledge of the original mission science
goals, together with new applications often not foreseen during their original design. Their
operation as part of the Heliophysics System Observatory (HSO)---a coordinated, 1eliophysics,
multipoint observing system of the heliosphere, is a prime example. Some of the first activities
undertaken by the Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter missions required recreating the larger
context of their new observations by using the diversity of HSO mission capabilities. The marginal
cost of maintaining this valuable, working science resource, in the form of both continuing high
quality data access and expertise, is small compared to the cost of the original missions or of new missions to achieve similar objectives, making the operation of extended missions, the best “science per dollar” investment in Heliophysics.

We argue that reducing both extended mission operations and science budgets will have a ripple
effect across the community, including reducing employment and training opportunities for young
scientists, to lowering the quality/impact of the Heliophysics Systems Observatory. Instead, we
suggest that the proposal process for mission extension should be re-examined. We offer several
ideas for reducing costs of extended missions toward maintaining science output and streamlining the management process.