Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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field’s most compelling science problems. (See the section “Venture: Venture Forward with Science Centers
and Instrument and Technology Development” in Chapter 4.)
NASA Individual-Principal-Investigator Grants Program
To achieve its broad science goals, the NASA science enterprise requires coordinated programs of missions, data analysis, theory and modeling, and technology development. Heliophysics individual-PI grants
programs (SR&T, TR&T, and GI programs) are the core support of the division’s non-mission-hardware
science and are the bedrock for developing new science understanding and mission concepts. Many transformational advances, ranging from the prediction of a solar wind to the development of far-side imaging,
are based on research supported by the core grants program.
Although PI-grant programs provide unmatched science return on investment, they have recently suffered severe losses, and their funding is now less than 10 percent of total division funding. That investment
is inadequate; fully realizing the returns of the HSO with its enormous data sets from multiple missions
demands a higher level of PI-grant funding. Therefore, the SHP panel assigns high priority to the Heliophysics Division’s gradually increasing the investment in individual-PI-grant programs to 20 percent of division
funding over the next decade. 26
Furthermore, the SHP panel suggests that the increase be implemented primarily by increasing grant
size rather than grant number. The present grant size of $100,000 to $150,000 per year is inadequate to
support even individual-PI investigations and restricts the scope and depth of the science that such grants
can address too much. It also leads to enormous inefficiencies for the community and NASA in the number
of proposals that are written and reviewed. It is an imperative of the SHP panel that NASA work toward
doubling the size of SR&T, TR&T, and GI grants to $200,000 to $300,000 per year.
Heliophysics Systems Observatory and MO&DA Support
The HSO relies on a distributed network of missions (implemented for specific science goals) to address
strategic objectives that require multipoint or remote-sensing observations on long timescales. 27 The distributed network provides comprehensive measurements of the whole Sun-heliosphere system, including
Sun-Earth interactions, spanning a few years up to almost a 22-year Hale cycle. It fuels new system science
by extending individual missions beyond their prime phase.
Resource allocation among extended HSO missions is determined through the senior-review process,
which evaluates future scientific priorities for each mission. The present 5-year budget requests show flat
or declining HSO funding. In addition to supporting existing HSO missions, the budget must accommodate
new missions, such as RBSP (renamed the Van Allen Probes) and SDO, that finish their prime mission in or
before FY 2015; this will inevitably lead to forced termination of or severe cuts in current HSO missions.
As a consequence, key systems-science objectives are endangered, and essential legacy data sets may be
foreshortened at a time when solar activity is apparently evolving in unexpected ways. Multipoint observations throughout the heliosphere and from the Sun to geospace regions need to be maintained to enable
systems science. The SHP panel assigns high priority to augmenting MO&DA support by annual inflationary increases plus $5 million to $10 million per year to accommodate new missions so that senior-review
decisions can be prudently based on strategic evaluations of existing and emerging assets.
26 J.A. Klimchuck, Maximizing NASA’s Science Productivity, white paper submitted to the Decadal Strategy for Solar and Space
Physics (Heliophysics), Paper 135; C.M.S. Cohen et al., Protecting Science Mission Investment: Balancing the Funding Profile for
Data Analysis Programs, white paper submitted to the Decadal Strategy for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics), Paper 45.
27 J.G. Luhmann, Guest Investigator and Participating Scientist Programs, white paper submitted to the Decadal Strategy for Solar
and Space Physics (Heliophysics), Paper 166.
Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society
REPORT OF THE PANEL ON SOLAR AND HELIOSPHERIC PHYSICS
313
field’s most compelling science problems. (See the section “Venture: Venture Forward with Science Centers
and Instrument and Technology Development” in Chapter 4.)
NASA Individual-Principal-Investigator Grants Program
To achieve its broad science goals, the NASA science enterprise requires coordinated programs of missions, data analysis, theory and modeling, and technology development. Heliophysics individual-PI grants
programs (SR&T, TR&T, and GI programs) are the core support of the division’s non-mission-hardware
science and are the bedrock for developing new science understanding and mission concepts. Many transformational advances, ranging from the prediction of a solar wind to the development of far-side imaging,
are based on research supported by the core grants program.
Although PI-grant programs provide unmatched science return on investment, they have recently suffered severe losses, and their funding is now less than 10 percent of total division funding. That investment
is inadequate; fully realizing the returns of the HSO with its enormous data sets from multiple missions
demands a higher level of PI-grant funding. Therefore, the SHP panel assigns high priority to the Heliophysics Division’s gradually increasing the investment in individual-PI-grant programs to 20 percent of division
funding over the next decade. 26
Furthermore, the SHP panel suggests that the increase be implemented primarily by increasing grant
size rather than grant number. The present grant size of $100,000 to $150,000 per year is inadequate to
support even individual-PI investigations and restricts the scope and depth of the science that such grants
can address too much. It also leads to enormous inefficiencies for the community and NASA in the number
of proposals that are written and reviewed. It is an imperative of the SHP panel that NASA work toward
doubling the size of SR&T, TR&T, and GI grants to $200,000 to $300,000 per year.
Heliophysics Systems Observatory and MO&DA Support
The HSO relies on a distributed network of missions (implemented for specific science goals) to address
strategic objectives that require multipoint or remote-sensing observations on long timescales. 27 The distributed network provides comprehensive measurements of the whole Sun-heliosphere system, including
Sun-Earth interactions, spanning a few years up to almost a 22-year Hale cycle. It fuels new system science
by extending individual missions beyond their prime phase.
Resource allocation among extended HSO missions is determined through the senior-review process,
which evaluates future scientific priorities for each mission. The present 5-year budget requests show flat
or declining HSO funding. In addition to supporting existing HSO missions, the budget must accommodate
new missions, such as RBSP (renamed the Van Allen Probes) and SDO, that finish their prime mission in or
before FY 2015; this will inevitably lead to forced termination of or severe cuts in current HSO missions.
As a consequence, key systems-science objectives are endangered, and essential legacy data sets may be
foreshortened at a time when solar activity is apparently evolving in unexpected ways. Multipoint observations throughout the heliosphere and from the Sun to geospace regions need to be maintained to enable
systems science. The SHP panel assigns high priority to augmenting MO&DA support by annual inflationary increases plus $5 million to $10 million per year to accommodate new missions so that senior-review
decisions can be prudently based on strategic evaluations of existing and emerging assets.
26 J.A. Klimchuck, Maximizing NASA’s Science Productivity, white paper submitted to the Decadal Strategy for Solar and Space
Physics (Heliophysics), Paper 135; C.M.S. Cohen et al., Protecting Science Mission Investment: Balancing the Funding Profile for
Data Analysis Programs, white paper submitted to the Decadal Strategy for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics), Paper 45.
27 J.G. Luhmann, Guest Investigator and Participating Scientist Programs, white paper submitted to the Decadal Strategy for Solar
and Space Physics (Heliophysics), Paper 166.