Amendment 3: C.2 Emerging Worlds and C.3 Solar System Workings Change in Scope Regarding Lunar Materials

Research in the area of "Emerging Worlds" aims to answer the fundamental science question of how the Solar System formed and evolved. It helps to advance the strategic science goal to "explore and observe the objects in the Solar System to understand how they formed and evolve" through basic research.

The Solar System Workings (SSW) program element supports research into atmospheric, climatological, dynamical, geologic, geophysical, and geochemical processes occurring on planetary bodies, satellites, and other minor bodies (including rings) in the Solar System. This call seeks to address the physical and chemical processes that affect the surfaces, interiors, atmospheres, exospheres, and magnetospheres of planetary bodies

Since the inception of SSW and EW there has been a grey area and some confusion about where to submit some lunar proposals and how to justify relevance to the program. In response to inquiries by the lunar community regarding certain lunar proposals, SSW and EW are both being amended to allow proposals using lunar samples, if they otherwise fall within scope of the program and successfully make the case for relevance.

ROSES-2020 Amendment 3 changes the text of both C.2 Emerging Worlds and C.3 Solar System Workings to indicate that studies of lunar materials need not be restricted to active, ongoing processes to be in scope of SSW. For studies of the Moon, sample-based and experimental studies of the chemical, petrological, and isotopic properties of lunar materials might be relevant to Solar Systems Workings or Emerging Worlds, depending on what is proposed. Please refer to Sections 2.2 and 3.1.7 of C.2 Emerging Worlds and Sections 1 and 2.1 of C.3 Solar System Workings to understand the scopes of these two programs. New text is in bold and deleted text is struck through. The due dates remain unchanged. Step-1 proposals for C.2 Emerging Worlds are due April 3, 2020.

Questions concerning C.2 Emerging Worlds may be directed to HQ-EMERGINGWORLDS@mail.nasa.gov.

Questions concerning C.3 Solar System Workings may be directed to hq-ssw@mail.nasa.gov.