Mission Study
Probe-Class Astrophysics Mission Concepts
14 January 2016
To: The Astronomical Community
From: The Physics of the Cosmos Program Analysis Group Executive Committee
Due Date: March 1, 2016
About Probe Class Mission Concepts Study
A Study to Assess Community Interest in Probes and Understand Range of Concepts
The Physics of the Cosmos Program Analysis Group (PhysPAG) invites you to provide feedback by submission of white papers on compelling Probe-class missions that NASA should consider for the 2020s.We are using this information to assess community interest in probes, and to understand the range of concepts.
In 2015, Paul Hertz (Director, NASA Astrophysics Division) issued a memo to the astronomical community to stimulate planning for the 2020 Decadal Survey. Now that the question of large mission studies is advancing to the STDT mission-study phase, it is an appropriate time for the PhysPAG to consider the question of Probe-class missions in a more formal fashion.
A Probe-class mission would have a primary mission goal of addressing a focused science investigation with a PI, and is not intended to be a general-user type observatory. This activity is intended to explore the PCOS community's interest in a line of competed PI missions, in this approximate cost range.
The papers submitted will be made public, so do not include proprietary information. The PhysPAG particularly wants to understand the potential for missions in the $0.5M – 1B range. Please also include an idea of the mission lifetime needed for meeting its science goal(s). This initial call for white papers is only a start. The white papers will form a core set of community input for discussion regarding whether the establishment of a formal Probe-class mission line is warranted.
Suggested Format for the Papers
- Science drivers
- Technical capabilities
- New technologies
- Reasons why a probe-class mission is needed
- Cost estimate
Probe Study White Papers
| Title | Submitted by | Presentation |
|---|---|---|
| Death of Massive Stars (DoMaS) Probe | Pete Roming, Eric Schlegel, Thomas Greathouse, Neil Gehrels, Chris Fryer, Derek Fox, Michael Davis, Amanda Bayless | [PDF] |
| The Inflation Probe: A Probe-Class Astrophysics Mission | Inflation Probe Science Interest Group (IPSIG) – Ed Wollack | [PDF] |
| An X-ray Grating Spectroscopy Probe | M. W. Bautz, J. A. Bookbinder, W. N. Brandt, J. N. Bregman, L. Brenneman, C. Canizares, L. R. Corrales, A. Foster, H.M. Günther, D.P. Huenemoerder, R.L. McEntaffer, R. Petre, A.F. Ptak, R.K. Smith, W.W. Zhang | [PDF] |
| The High-Energy X-ray Probe (HEX-P) | Fiona Harrison, D. Stern, D. Alexander, S. Boggs, W.N. Brandt, L. Brenneman, D. Chakrabarty, F. Christensen, M. Elvis, A. Fabian, N. Gehrels, B.Grefenstette, J. Grindlay, C. Hailey, A. Hornschemeier, A. Hornstrup, V. Kaspi, H. Krawczynski, G. Madejski, K. Madsen, G. Matt, J. Miller, H. Miyasaka, S. Molendi, D. Smith, J. Tomsick, C.M. Urry, & W. Zhang | [PDF] |
| Probe-class mission concepts for studying mHz gravitational waves | Massimo Tinto, Daniel B. DeBra, Sasha Buchman, Robert L. Byer | [PDF] |
| 99 Luftballons | Tim Eifler | [PDF] |
| The Large Observatory For X-ray Timing Probe (LOFT-P): A NASA Probe-Class Mission Concept | Colleen A. Wilson-Hodge (NASA/MSFC), Paul S. Ray (NRL), Deepto Chakrabarty (MIT), Thomas J. Maccarone (TTU), Marco Feroci (INAF-IAPS) on behalf of the US-LOFT SWG and the LOFT consortium | [PDF] |
| Advanced Particle-astrophysics Telescope (APT) | James H. Buckley, W. Robert Binns, Viatcheslav Bugaev, Manel Errando, Martin Israel, Fabian Kislat, Henric Krawczynski | [PDF] |
| The Time-domain Spectroscopic Observatory (TSO) | Jonathan Grindlay, E. Berger, G. Djorgovski, N. Gehrels, P. Green, F. Harrison, D. Hartmann, S. Kahn, A. Kutyrev, B. Metzger, G. Melnick, H. Moseley, B. Peterson, G. Rieke, N. Tanvir, T. Tyson, & Z. Ivezic | [PDF] |
| Transient Astrophysics Probe (TAP) | Jordan Camp and Neil Gehrels | [PDF] |
| A Wide-Field X-ray Probe | A. Ptak for the N-WFI and WFXT teams | [PDF] |
| All-sky Medium Energy Gamma-Ray Observatory (AMEGO): A Medium-Energy Gamma-ray Surveyor | Julie McEnery, Elizabeth Ferrara, Elizabeth Hays, John Mitchell, Alex Moiseev, Roopesh Ojha, Jeremy Perkins, Judith Racusin, Andrew Smith, David J. Thompson, Marco Ajello, Dieter Hartmann, James Buckley, Henric Krawczynski, Fabian Kislat, Regina Caputo, Robert Johnson, Valerie Connaughton, J. Eric Grove, Richard Woolf, Eric Wulf, Luca Baldini, Nicola Omodei, Michelle Hui, Colleen Wilson-Hodge | [PDF] |
| A Probe-Class Gravitational-Wave Observatory | Sean McWilliams | [PDF] |
| GreatOWL: A space-based mission to realize charged-particle and neutrino astronomy | John Mitchell, John Krizmanic, & Douglas Bergman | [PDF] |
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