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SOLAR AND SPACE PHYSICS: A SCIENCE FOR A TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY
10.5.3.3 Development of Strategic Missions in the Explorer Mode
SHP Imperative: Given the Explorer program’s excellent record in delivering state-of-the-art science
within or below cost and on schedule, the SHP panel gives high priority to extending the Explorer missiondevelopment model to middle-size strategic missions.
Justification: The heliophysics Explorer program has an unmatched record of innovative implementation and high science return on investment while staying within cost and schedule guidelines. Adopting
the Explorer model for strategic missions whenever possible implies that missions are competed, led by
principal investigators (PIs), and cost-capped. Unlike for Explorers, the science would be restricted. To
encourage innovation, considerable latitude should be allowed to achieve the science objectives. That
approach should be possible for missions up to about $500 million; the Planetary Division already has
PI-led missions of this size. That is consistent with the 2003 decadal survey recommendation that for strategic STP and LWS missions “NASA should (1) place as much responsibility as possible in the hands of the
principal investigator, (2) define the mission rules clearly at the beginning, and (3) establish levels of responsibility and mission rules that are tailored to the particular mission and to its scope and complexity.” 24
10.5.3.4 Recovery of an Effective NASA Grants Program
The heliophysics grants program is the foundation of the NASA science enterprise, but its effectiveness
has been severely compromised in recent years by budget cuts in both research and analysis and newmissions guest-investigator (GI) programs and by the dearth of opportunities to develop innovative instrument concepts. In all of 2010, there were only 12 advertisements for heliophysics postdoctoral positions
(see Appendix D, “Education and Workforce Issues in Solar and Space Physics”)—clear evidence that the
typical PI grant size is no longer sufficient to support postdoctoral researchers. The imperatives described
below are essential for recovering an effective NASA science grants program.
Establishment of Heliophysics Science Centers
Achieving the SHP panel’s science goals (§10.1) requires solving a number of major science problems.
Many are sufficiently mature that important progress toward achieving closure between theory and observations can be expected. Examples are the following:
• Generation, emergence, and detection of active regions and other subsurface structures;
• Dynamic coupling of the ambient solar corona to the inner heliosphere;
• Magnetic reconnection in the Sun and heliosphere;
• Acceleration and transport of high-energy particles from the Sun;
• Origin and evolution of extreme solar storms and their impact on the geospace environment;
• Structure of the large-scale heliosphere and its interaction with the interstellar medium; and
• Complexity, nonlinearity, and cross-scale coupling through physical processes, such as turbulence,
plasma-neutral coupling, and wave-particle interactions.
Making ground-breaking advances on these major problems requires teams that combine different
expertise. 25 The SHP panel therefore strongly supports the creation of new heliophysics science centers
composed of teams of theorists, numerical modelers, and data experts working collectively to tackle the
24 NRC, The Sun to the Earth—and Beyond: A Decadal Research Strategy in Solar and Space Physics, 2003, pp. 19 and 157-158.
25 A. Bhattacharjee et al., Advanced Computational Capabilities for Exploration in Heliophysical Science (ACCEHS): A Virtual Space
Mission, white paper submitted to the Decadal Strategy for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics), Paper 12.
Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society
312
SOLAR AND SPACE PHYSICS: A SCIENCE FOR A TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY
10.5.3.3 Development of Strategic Missions in the Explorer Mode
SHP Imperative: Given the Explorer program’s excellent record in delivering state-of-the-art science
within or below cost and on schedule, the SHP panel gives high priority to extending the Explorer missiondevelopment model to middle-size strategic missions.
Justification: The heliophysics Explorer program has an unmatched record of innovative implementation and high science return on investment while staying within cost and schedule guidelines. Adopting
the Explorer model for strategic missions whenever possible implies that missions are competed, led by
principal investigators (PIs), and cost-capped. Unlike for Explorers, the science would be restricted. To
encourage innovation, considerable latitude should be allowed to achieve the science objectives. That
approach should be possible for missions up to about $500 million; the Planetary Division already has
PI-led missions of this size. That is consistent with the 2003 decadal survey recommendation that for strategic STP and LWS missions “NASA should (1) place as much responsibility as possible in the hands of the
principal investigator, (2) define the mission rules clearly at the beginning, and (3) establish levels of responsibility and mission rules that are tailored to the particular mission and to its scope and complexity.” 24
10.5.3.4 Recovery of an Effective NASA Grants Program
The heliophysics grants program is the foundation of the NASA science enterprise, but its effectiveness
has been severely compromised in recent years by budget cuts in both research and analysis and newmissions guest-investigator (GI) programs and by the dearth of opportunities to develop innovative instrument concepts. In all of 2010, there were only 12 advertisements for heliophysics postdoctoral positions
(see Appendix D, “Education and Workforce Issues in Solar and Space Physics”)—clear evidence that the
typical PI grant size is no longer sufficient to support postdoctoral researchers. The imperatives described
below are essential for recovering an effective NASA science grants program.
Establishment of Heliophysics Science Centers
Achieving the SHP panel’s science goals (§10.1) requires solving a number of major science problems.
Many are sufficiently mature that important progress toward achieving closure between theory and observations can be expected. Examples are the following:
• Generation, emergence, and detection of active regions and other subsurface structures;
• Dynamic coupling of the ambient solar corona to the inner heliosphere;
• Magnetic reconnection in the Sun and heliosphere;
• Acceleration and transport of high-energy particles from the Sun;
• Origin and evolution of extreme solar storms and their impact on the geospace environment;
• Structure of the large-scale heliosphere and its interaction with the interstellar medium; and
• Complexity, nonlinearity, and cross-scale coupling through physical processes, such as turbulence,
plasma-neutral coupling, and wave-particle interactions.
Making ground-breaking advances on these major problems requires teams that combine different
expertise. 25 The SHP panel therefore strongly supports the creation of new heliophysics science centers
composed of teams of theorists, numerical modelers, and data experts working collectively to tackle the
24 NRC, The Sun to the Earth—and Beyond: A Decadal Research Strategy in Solar and Space Physics, 2003, pp. 19 and 157-158.
25 A. Bhattacharjee et al., Advanced Computational Capabilities for Exploration in Heliophysical Science (ACCEHS): A Virtual Space
Mission, white paper submitted to the Decadal Strategy for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics), Paper 12.