Amendment 55: Astrophysics Research and Analysis Major Revision.

ROSES program element D.3 Astrophysics Research and Analysis (APRA) solicits basic research proposals for investigations that are relevant to NASA's programs in astronomy and astrophysics and includes research over the entire range of photons, gravitational waves, and particle astrophysics. Awards may be for up to four years’ duration (up to five years for suborbital investigations), but shorter-term proposals are typical; four-year or five-year proposals must be well justified. Proposals for suborbital investigations are particularly encouraged. APRA investigations may advance technologies anywhere along the full line of readiness levels, from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 1 through TRL 9. The emphasis of this program element is on technologies and investigations that advance NASA astrophysics missions and goals.

A number of changes have been made to this program element including: updates to Specific Considerations and Exclusions in Section 1.2, Suborbital-class Investigations (Section 1.2.1), Supporting Technology (Section 1.2.3), Laboratory Astrophysics (Section 1.2.4) where an additional allowance for laboratory astrophysics equipment has been added, General Information (Section 2.1) and the phone numbers for the points of contact in the summary table of information (Section 3). New text is in bold and deleted text is struck through.

Due dates remain unchanged: mandatory Notices of Intent are still due October 23, 2020, and the proposal deadline is December 17, 2020. This is roughly 3 months earlier than in previous years. This will enable the planned start date for funding for all proposers to begin sooner and with the same window, as opposed to the previous different dates for NASA and non-NASA PIs.

On or about September 17, 2020, this Amendment to the NASA Research Announcement "Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) 2020" (NNH20ZDA001N) will be posted on the NASA research opportunity homepage at http://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2020 and will appear on SARA's ROSES blog at: https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/grant-solicitations/roses-2020/

The main point of contact for D.3 APRA is Dominic Benford, who may be reached at Dominic.Benford@nasa.gov. Questions may be directed to him and/or the program officer with the corresponding discipline responsibility listed in Section 3 at the end of the program element.