Dear NASA Science Community,
NASA Science wants to deliver science faster, so we’re changing how we compete and select missions. On Monday, October 26, we will host a virtual NASA Science Town Hall, from NASA Headquarters, to explain our new Competition Model 2.0 (CM 2.0), and answer your questions.
We have heard you. We have listened. We know that the burden of bringing great ideas forward has been too heavy for too long. It has taken years to move mission concepts through the current two-step process. This has often come with contract management challenges, unpredictability, and not enough funding. NASA is committed to doing better — and I’m excited to share with you how we’re making it happen.
I am so pleased that NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has empowered the Science Mission Directorate to take action and make our mission selection process move more smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. The Administrator has directed us to accelerate the delivery of science, reduce the time and resources spent on long competitive processes, and focus funding on the highest-priority missions across every NASA Science division as quickly and affordably as possible. Predictability in delivering incredible science will be at the forefront of what we do.
We are committed to getting this right. Some of these changes will take time to fully implement. We will roll them out in stages, be thoughtful about them, and refine them with your input along the way. But time is also of the essence. By streamlining how missions are proposed, reviewed, and selected, we can make meaningful change right now. That streamlined approach is Competition Model 2.0, or CM2.0, and it is how we are answering the Administrator’s call to get you to science faster.
CM2.0 starts from a simple idea: compete on the science first. Proposals will be science-focused and will not require detailed engineering plans, cost, and implementation work until they are truly needed to make a decision. This frees you to spend more of your time doing science and less of it proposing how to do science.
Here is how we will streamline mission selection across our mission classes:
CM2.0 will not change how we manage our largest missions since that process has already been reformed. After the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA conducted the Large Mission Study which drew lessons from Webb and best practices from our most successful flagships into a single, documented approach for building large missions more efficiently. Flagships will continue to follow that approach, with NASA directing the overall mission to a lead NASA Center and it will then compete the science teams and instruments through targeted solicitations.
These missions will move to a new, accelerated two-step competition:
- Step 1 asks for just three things: a compelling science case, a science implementation plan, and a proof-of-concept mission design. That removes roughly half of the material currently required in an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) response. This allows the initial selection to focus on what matters most, the science. It also opens the door wider, because a strong idea is judged on its merits rather than on the size of the team behind it. Principal Investigators (PI) without a major university or commercial backing will get a fair consideration, and NASA PIs at any NASA Center remain eligible to respond.
- Step 2 is a Mission Implementation Study carried out with either NASA’s two Science Centers of Excellence, the Goddard Space Flight Center, or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). NASA SMD may award an implementation study (under the management of GSFC) for New Frontiers or Discovery to JHU/APL depending on the science selected. The mission implementation study bridges pre-Phase A and Phase A by evaluating scientific merit, science implementation merit, and mission implementation merit to ensure that risks are surfaced early on rather than hidden. Down-selection to a single mission happens partway through Phase A, and the selected mission completes Phase A and then arrives at KDP-B with a matured mission implementation design. Teams that are not selected are freed from carrying concepts through the rest of Phase A on their own.
These updates in the mission selection process will reduce time from AO to step 2 selection by up to 45 percent. This means that the original 35-months timeline will be reduced to about 19.5 months, all while having a stronger, more mature mission at the time of selection.
These missions follow the same two-step approach with an even broader field of implementing organizations, including universities and industry partners. Implementing organizations and partners will be evaluated on past performance on projects of similar complexity and cost prior to mission selection. PI-led teams can request pairing with either a Goddard or JPL implementation team at Step 1 selection, and NASA can provide Center support where it will help with procurement, contract management, or quick resolution of technical challenges. This will result again in an up to a 45 percent reduction in the selection timeline.
These missions will move to a single-step competition with a smaller review team and virtual site visits. They will also be open to a broad range of implementing organizations. The time to final selection will drop from about 32 months to about 19 months which is a reduction of up to 40 percent. Our smallest missions will be riding the momentum of a maturing commercial space economy and will move even faster. This means more missions, more often, with more incredible science at a lower cost.
The commercial space industry has never been stronger—and it’s only gaining momentum. Mission and implementation teams will be expected to adopt industry best practices and emerging commercial capabilities, including commercial buses, subsystems, and multi-mission operations — wherever they offer a technical or cost benefit. No mission class is too large or too complex to benefit from the commercial industry. We will keep assessing the commercial landscape at regular intervals, building on our recent Science as a Service Request for Information.
By competing on science first, established teams and first-time teams stand on equal footing. The best idea wins.
Great science deserves great stewardship. Rigorous cost and schedule control remains mandatory across every mission class. Phase A estimates will inform complexity and scope trades. Therefore, breaches of control thresholds will carry real consequences of up to, and including, mission termination. That discipline is how we keep the pipeline flowing for everyone.
Our NASA Centers lead the world in spaceflight experience. Therefore, by appropriately directing work at Goddard and JPL, we will save taxpayer dollars, eliminate unnecessary competition among NASA Centers, encourage collaboration, and keep critical skills thriving across the agency.
This is a moment of real opportunity. We have an administrator who is empowering us to move faster and a commercial market that is ready to help. We have NASA Centers with unmatched expertise, and a science community whose ideas expand and redefine the bounds of human achievement in the cosmos. CM2.0 brings those strengths together so that more great ideas become great missions, all while being faster and returning more science at an affordable price for the benefit of all.
NASA leads the world in discovery and innovation, but none of that happens on its own. It happens because of you. You are the reason the list of what’s “impossible” keeps getting shorter. I am so proud of what this community has achieved, and what incredible science we will continue to discover together
Thank you for your brilliance, your dedication, and your partnership. The best of NASA Science is still ahead of us, and I cannot wait to see where this journey takes us.
With gratitude and excitement,
Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
