Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration released as amendment 2 to SALMON-3

The Planetary Science Division (PSD) of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is releasing Program Element Appendix (PEA) J of the Third Stand Alone Missions of Opportunity Notice (SALMON-3) Announcement of Opportunity (AO) NNH17ZDA004O. The full text of the SIMPLEx PEA is available on the NSPIRES page for NNH17ZDA004O-SIMPLEx.

SALMON-3 is an omnibus AO that provides a solicitation and procurement base for modest investigations, also referred to as Missions of Opportunity (MO), requiring space flight. Amendment #2 to SALMON-3 creates PEA J, which describes the requirements for Small Complete Mission of Opportunity proposals and documents specific requirements for SIMPLEx. Through this PEA, SMD/PSD solicits investigations for a secondary payload small spacecraft to be built and deployed from a primary spacecraft mission, followed by production of high quality and highly useful science data from that SmallSat, analysis of the data and publication of scientific results, and delivery of the data to an appropriate NASA archive.

Participation is open to all categories of organizations (U.S. and non-U.S.), including educational institutions, industry, not-for-profit organizations, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, NASA Centers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other Government agencies. However, for PEA J, only U.S. organizations are eligible to propose as the sole or lead organization. Non-U.S. organizations may participate as non-lead organizations collaborating with U.S. leads.

Notices of Intent (NOIs) are mandatory for this Program Element Appendix (PEA). Please refer to the HTML Table of SALMON-3 PEA Due Dates for the due dates for both these mandatory NOIs and for the proposals.Further information about this SALMON-3 PEA is available through the SIMPLEx Program Library at https://soma.larc.nasa.gov/simplex/programlibrary.html

A Preproposal Conference regarding this solicitation took place (via webinar) on May 22, 2018.

Any changes to this meeting or additional information will be posted on the NSPIRES page for NNH17ZDA004O-SIMPLEx and on the SOMA SIMPLEx investigation acquisition homepage prior to the Preproposal Conference.

Direct questions specifically regarding the PEA may be addressed by email to SIMPLEx Program Scientist: Ms. Doris Daou, Email: Doris.Daou@nasa.gov (subject line to read “SIMPLEx FINAL AO”). Responses to all inquiries will be answered by email and also posted in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on the SOMA SIMPLEx investigation acquisition homepage. Anonymity of those who submit questions will be preserved.