Amendment 6: Final text and due dates for B.16 Heliophysics Mission Concept Studies.

B.16 Heliophysics Mission Concept Studies (HMCS) will support a limited number of mission concept studies for development ahead of the next National Academy of Sciences' solar and space physics decadal survey. These studies would be conducted over the course of six months and are expected to result in two white papers: one describing the science objectives and one describing the mission concept.

Mission concepts for study must address a focused science investigation relevant to the Heliophysics Division's Solar Terrestrial Probes program. For this program, a mission concept must address the weakest links in the chain of understanding in order to fundamentally advance the entire heliophysics field.

Proposal teams must include all scientific and engineering resources necessary to complete the studies. NASA will not provide access to mission design groups as part of awards; however, a list of mission design groups that are interested in partnering with proposers is posted on the HMCS NSPIRES page.

ROSES-2021 Amendment 6 releases final text and due dates for B.16 HMCS, which was released as draft late in ROSES-2020. Notices of Intent are due April 23, 2021, and proposals are due May 28, 2021. As was stated with the draft text release, the time between final text release and proposal due date is shorter than 90 days due to the lack of significant content changes.

On or about March 12, 2021, this Amendment to the NASA Research Announcement "Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) 2021" (NNH21ZDA001N) will be posted on the NASA research opportunity homepage at http://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2021.

Shortly following the release of this Amendment, a document with responses to questions submitted will be posted on the HMCS NSPIRES page. Proposers are encouraged to regularly check that document for updates.

Questions concerning B.16 HMCS may be directed to Jared Leisner at jared.s.leisner@nasa.gov.