Don Savage
Headquarters, Washington, DC April 10, 1996
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Jim Sahli/Fred Brown
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone: 301/286-8955)
RELEASE: 96-68
INVESTIGATIONS SELECTED FOR INITIAL MIDEX MISSIONS
NASA's Office of Space Science has selected the first
two science missions for the new Medium-class Explorer
(MIDEX) program. The two missions, selected for definition
studies leading to confirmation and development, are the
Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) and the Imager for
Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE).
The MAP mission will make a detailed investigation of
the cosmic microwave background to help understand the large
scale structure of the universe, such as galaxies and
clusters of galaxies, which result in enormous walls and
voids in the cosmos. The Principal Investigator is Dr.
Charles L. Bennett of the Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD. Information about the MAP mission is
available on the World Wide Web at URL:
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov.
The IMAGE mission will use three-dimensional imaging
techniques to study the global response of the Earth's
magnetosphere to variations in the solar wind, the steam of
electrified particles flowing out from the Sun. The
magnetosphere is the region surrounding the Earth controlled
by its magnetic field and containing the Van Allen radiation
belts and other energetic charged particles. The IMAGE
Principal Investigator is Dr. James L. Burch, Southwest
Research Institute, San Antonio, TX.
"These selections are the beginning of a key
component of our program of scientific exploration of space
into the next century," said Dr. Wesley T. Huntress Jr.,
Associate Administrator for Space Science at NASA
Headquarters, Washington, DC. "We received many outstanding
proposals for the first two MIDEX missions, and it was an
extremely difficult choice. It's exciting that such
remarkable science can be accomplished within the MIDEX cost
constraints."
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In addition to the two primary missions, two
alternate missions were chosen to receive minimal funding
for study in the event that the primary missions are not
able to proceed to development. The alternate mission for
MAP is The Hopkins Ultraviolet Background Explorer (HUBE).
Dr. Richard Henry, Johns Hopkins University, is Principal
Investigator. The alternate for IMAGE is the High Energy
Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI). Professor Robert Lin,
University of California, Berkeley, is Principal
Investigator.
The MIDEX program is intended to provide research
opportunities in the areas of astrophysics and space
physics. Plans call for about one MIDEX mission to be
launched per year, with development cost capped at no more
than $70 million (FY 1994 dollars) each, excluding the costs
of the launch vehicle and mission operations and data
analysis. Mission operations are expected to be completed
within two years.
The space science investigations in the MIDEX program
will use spacecraft launched on NASA's Med-Lite expendable
launch vehicles, with launch anticipated to be late 1999 and
2000. The launch dates and order of launch will be
determined in the near future, followed by confirmation for
development of the first mission in about a year.
The MIDEX missions are a new component of NASA's
Explorer program, designed to complement the Small Explorer
and the proposed University Explorer Programs, and are a
follow-on to the more than 70 successful missions beginning
with the launch of Explorer 1 in 1958. The Explorer program
was restructured in 1994 to permit more frequent, low-cost
launch opportunities, with no more than three years from the
design and development phase to launch.
The Explorer Project Office at the Goddard Space
Flight Center will manage MIDEX mission development for
NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The Med-
Lite Expendable Launch Vehicle program is managed by
Goddard's Orbital Launch Project Office. McDonnell Douglas
Aircraft Company will provide the Med-Lite launch vehicle.
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