2019 Senior Review of Operating Missions

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) periodically conducts independent, comparative reviews of its operating missions. NASA uses the findings from these reviews to define an implementation strategy and give programmatic direction to the missions and projects concerned for the next five fiscal years.

These reviews of operating missions are NASA’s highest form of peer review, as the subject is not a single science investigation, or even a single space mission, but rather a portfolio of operating missions. The reviews of operating missions are referred to as Senior Reviews, in recognition of the high level of the peer review.

The 2019 Senior Review included the following missions:

Chandra X-ray Observatory
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
Hubble Space Telescope
Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer
Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array
Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission-Newton

Panel Composition and Structure

The 2019 Astrophysics Senior used a multi-level review structure (see figure below), in which three panels reported to a Senior Review Subcommittee, which was established as a subordinate group to the Astrophysics Advisory Committee, consistent with the Charter of the Astrophysics Advisory Committee and compliant with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) of 1972 (P.L. 92-463).