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NASA Facts National Aeronautics and Space Administration Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 91109

New Millennium Program NASA's New Millennium program, a series of discerning trends, examining planetary climates and missions to test cutting-edge technologies never atmospheres, or landing to study such surface phe- before flown, will pave the way for a 21st century nomena as seismic and meteorological activity. Other fleet of affordable, frequently launched spacecraft – sets of spacecraft could form a constellation uniquely perhaps 10 to suited to study 15 per year – solar systems with highly beyond our own. focused sci- These goals ence objec- require significant tives. changes in almost New all aspects of Millennium spacecraft design will develop and deployment. and validate New Millennium the essential experimental tech- technologies nology flights will and capabilities validate key tech- required for nologies required these new to move toward. types of mis- Testing these sions. The pro- technologies in gram is flight will speed designed to ini- up their infusion tiate a revolu- New Millennium’s will test ion propulsion and other technologies into the market- tionary new when the spacecraft flies by an asteroid and later possibly a comet (above). place. Some of way of explor- the space instru- ing Earth, the solar system and astrophysical events in ments of tomorrow may become as small and light- and far beyond the Milky Way galaxy. These new weight as a pocket wallet. missions will ensure NASA's technological readiness Drawing on diverse sectors of the country's sci- for post-2000 space and Earth science missions. ence and technology expertise – from universities, Begun in 1994, New Millennium features mis- nonprofit organizations, the aerospace industry and sions launched so frequently that they will be able to other government agencies to the specialized services create armadas in space. Some of these probes will of high-technology companies – new technologies combine to create a network of spacecraft capable of will emerge in the next several years that will enable more autonomous spacecraft to be developed. goals at an affordable cost.

The Selection Process In the second phase of the selection process, tech- nologies being considered for flight development are The New Millennium program was designed to further winnowed by assessing their long-term impact help fulfill the need for new technologies that can on science return, their cost, the revolutionary nature provide high scientific payoffs and a continuous flow of the technologies and the degree of risk reduction of data from space to Earth. To ensure this goal is offered by flight validation. Evaluation of the tech- met, a science working group representing the fields nologies in this phase will be done by program man- of planetary science, space physics, astrophysics and agement in consultation with the science working terrestrial science has assisted in identifying key chal- group and flight teams. At the end of this phase, a lenges facing the scientific community in its quest to host of technologies with a corresponding set of find out more about the universe. This group has also flights will be recommended to NASA Headquarters. catalogued the type of science missions that could conceivably fly in the post-2000 era to address these The third phase of the selection process involves challenges, as well as the key capabilities that would delivery of technologies for flight. A set of readiness be required for such missions. Their vision provides checkpoints will ensure timely delivery of the tech- the basis for New Millennium's selection of technolo- nologies for flight. Those which meet the schedule of gies for flight validation. checkpoints will be integrated and flight validated by New Millennium. Selection of technologies for a par- Technologies to be validated in New Millennium ticular validation flight requires a match between the flights will be determined in a three-phase process. In development cost and readiness dates of a given tech- the first phase, identification of a broad suite of tech- nology, in addition to the ability to ready the technol- nologies is given over to six teams made up of mem- ogy for flight given budget constraints and flight bers from private industry, academia, nonprofit orga- opportunities available for New Millennium. This nizations, other NASA centers and government agen- final step will be carried out by program manage- cies, so that they can design road maps for the devel- ment, with consideration given to the balance and opment of breakthrough technologies to meet the sci- interrelationships between high-priority technologies ence goals of the mission. The groups, called "inte- needed for 21st century science missions. grated product development teams," are charged with recommending a coherent program of technology Facilities and Funding development to render the highest priority capabilities NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory was chosen to currently ready for space flight validation. manage the New Millennium program in part because The specialty areas of New Millennium's six inte- of its expertise in developing advanced space tech- grated product development teams are: spacecraft nologies. Facilities such as its Microdevices autonomy; microelectronics systems; in-situ instru- Laboratory place JPL in the forefront of emerging ments and microelectromechanical systems; instru- micro-technologies for space flight. As a federally ment technologies and architectures; communications; funded research and development center, the and modular and multifunctional systems. Laboratory has broad-based funding resources for The teams will make priorities among innovative technology development work. concepts being sought from all sectors of the engi- The Laboratory has reengineered its project neering and science communities. Technologies that design process to reduce the cost of developing a are designated high priority by the teams are expected space flight mission. Construction of a JPL Project to provide revolutionary advances in capability that Design Center, a computer-aided facility capable of will allow New Millennium missions to leap ahead in creating several spacecraft designs and options in reducing the cost of 21st century space flight. very little time, represents a new approach in auto- Additional factors considered in identifying these mated mission design and verification. The technologies include their applicability to a wide Laboratory's Flight System Testbed complements the range of missions and their ability to address science Project Design Center in developing concurrent engi-

2 neering systems for new spacecraft and identifying power requirements, and eliminating many discrete incompatibilities early in the design phase. components and external interfaces. Enhanced perfor- The New Millennium Program is a multi-year- mance will support information processing onboard level program funded at approximately $60 million spacecraft, giving them more autonomy and the capa- per year for the space science portion of the program, bility of working in concert with several other space- and at $50 million for the Earth-orbiting portion. craft forming a constellation in orbit. q The in-situ instruments and microelectro- Integrated Product Development Teams mechanical systems team will focus on revolution- Integrated product development teams have been ary advances in science instruments and miniature established in six technology areas. Teams are made electrical and mechanical devices that offer new and up of anywhere from four to 22 members. Roughly affordable approaches to collecting science data or to half of the members come from NASA and other gov- providing spacecraft engineering data. ernment agencies. The remainder were selected Sensors the size of a computer chip and integrated through an open competition with industry, nonprofit instrument packages will be developed to enable new laboratories and academia based on the technology capabilities and reduce component sizes and costs. concepts that were proposed, in addition to their rele- New approaches for designing, simulating and pack- vance to New Millennium objectives and the stage of aging novel microinstrument technologies will also be maturity of these technologies. addressed. The six integrated product development teams q The instrument technologies and architec- will address the following areas: tures team will define technology validation for new q The autonomy team will focus on software instruments and combine them in a system architec- and end-to-end system architecture that enables ture that reduces the cost of science measurements autonomous spacecraft operation, thereby reducing and makes possible the acquisition of new science the ground operations costs. Technologies of interest measurements. include real-time and fault tolerant spacecraft sys- q The communications team will develop small, tems; those technologies which can guarantee fault highly integrated modular telecommunications sys- detection, isolation, recovery and avoidance; products tems for deep space and near-Earth space flight mis- such as computer-aided software engineering tools sions. Deep space and near-Earth missions require and knowledge-based software; and tools for advances in ultra low noise and ultra high bandwidth advanced software architecture. capabilities, respectively. Innovations will be neces- These technologies will support functions such as sary to increase efficiency in higher frequency radio overall mission control, spacecraft sequencing, space- systems, to share transceiver hardware with naviga- craft health and resource management, payload data tion and science data acquisition and to implement collection and analysis, guidance and navigation. new approaches in data coding and operational con- These systems will also support station-keeping of cepts. multiple spacecraft and be capable of managing and q The modular and multifunctional systems disseminating spacecraft information and data. team will address revolutionary advances in mechani- q The microelectronics team will develop the cal and thermal systems, energy generation and stor- technology for an integrated, three-dimensional age, and propulsion alternatives that offer affordable microelectronics architecture that will replace a solutions for science missions in the next century. spacecraft's avionics functions, which are provided by New approaches will be developed to reduce the separate individual subsystems such as attitude con- structural mass of spacecraft and to use solar electric trol, command and data processing, power and mass power even in missions that take place far from the data storage. Sun. Such integrated architectures can improve system performance while drastically reducing the mass and 3 Teaming with NASA as mission/trajectory design and navigation, space- The New Millennium program has actively craft instrumentation, fabrication or testing, and mis- solicited the participation of industry, universities, sion operations. nonprofit organizations, other NASA centers and gov- Deep Space 1 ernment agencies to form innovative relationships within these integrated product development teams. The first New Millennium deep space mission, The integrated product development teams will iden- Deep Space 1 features a 490-kilogram (1,080-pound) tify, deliver and implement breakthrough technologies spacecraft that was launched October 24, 1998. for specific missions. Concurrent engineering teams Deep Space 1 will demonstrate 12 advanced tech- will be assembled to carry out flight and ground-sys- nologies that will help enable many ambitious deep tem engineering for each New Millennium flight. All space and Earth-orbiting missions planned for flight categories of participants will be eligible to become early in the next century. The spacecraft will also be members of any of these teams. the first to rely on solar electric propulsion for its Universities that are prepared to deliver flight main source of thrust, rather than conventional solid hardware or software can compete directly for mem- or liquid propellant-based systems. bership in an integrated product development team, or Technologies to be demonstrated include new they can team with an industrial organization that telecommunications equipment; autonomous optical already has membership in a team. This and similar navigation; advanced solar arrays; a minature inte- technology development programs under the sponsor- grated ion and electron spectrometer; microelectronic ship of other government agencies are part of the devices; and a miniaturized camera and imaging spec- nation's technology pipeline, from which New trometer that will take pictures and make chemical Millennium will select its technologies for flight vali- maps of asteroid 1992 KD, which the spacecraft will dation. fly by in July 1999. Small businesses that are ready to develop and Among the most striking technologies is solar deliver hardware and software can become members electric propulsion – in the form of a xenon ion of the integrated product development teams in the engine – marking the first time that this long-studied same way as universities. They are also eligible for form of propulsion has been used as the primary funding to develop relevant technologies through propulsion source in deep space. This futuristic NASA's Small Business Innovation Research pro- engine, using heavy but inert xenon gas as propellant, gram. will be driven by more than 2,000 watts from large A number of government sponsors, including the solar arrays. Spectrum Astro Inc. of Gilbert, AZ, is U.S. Air Force Phillips Laboratory, the Defense the primary industrial partner on the first mission Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National team. JPL's David Lehman is the flight project man- Science Foundation, have expressed an interest in ager, and Dr. Marc Rayman is chief mission engineer coordinating their technology development programs and deputy mission manager. Further information is to match those of New Millennium and other NASA available on the web at technology development programs currently in place. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1news . The synergy created by these pooled resources and expertise offers benefits to all parties. Two small probes weighing two kilograms (4.5 Some government agencies already hold member- pounds) each will be sent to Mars in January 1999 ship in some of the integrated product development onboard the spacecraft to study teams. The technologies they are developing can be Mars' soil and atmosphere. carried out in government, nonprofit, industrial or academic laboratories. Some government laboratories, The microprobes are designed to withstand both such as the Department of Defense or the Department very low temperatures and high decelerations. Each of Energy, may participate in specific New highly integrated package will include an advanced Millennium missions, contributing to such activities microcontroller, a telecommunications microsubsys- 4 tem, power microelectronics, an ultra low-tempera- be demonstrated, enabling more scientific payloads to ture lithium battery, and flexible interconnects for fly on future missions. The technologies are: X-band system cabling. phased array antenna, carbon-carbon radiator, light- In-situ instrument technologies for making direct weight flexible solar array, wideband advanced measurements of the Martian surface will include recorder processor, pulsed plasma thruster, enhanced temperature sensors for measuring the thermal prop- formation flying and fiber-optic data bus. erties of the Martian soil and a subsurface soil collec- Scheduled for launch in December 1999, the tion and analysis instrument to detect the presence of spacecraft will be furnished by Swales & Associates water ice in the soil. Inc., Beltsville, MD, and Litton Industries, College The microprobes will be mounted on the lander Park, MD. spacecraft’s cruise ring. The probes will separate and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages plummet to the surface using a single-stage entry Earth Orbiter 1 for NASA's Office of Earth Science. aeroshell system. Upon impact, the aeroshells will At Goddard, Dr. Bryant Cramer is the New shatter, and the microprobes will divide into a fore- Millenium Program Earth-orbiting implementation body and aftbody. The forebody, which will lodge 30 manager, Dale Schulz is Earth Orbiter 1 project man- to 90 centimeters (one to three feet) underground, will ager and Dr. Stephen Ungar is Earth Orbiter 1 mis- contain the primary electronics and instruments. The sion scientist. Further information is available on the aftbody, which will stay close to the surface, will col- web at http://eo1.gsfc.nasa.gov/ . lect meteorological data and relay data back to Earth using the currently orbiting Mars Global Team spacecraft. The New Millennium Program is managed by the Deep Space 2 is led by Project Manager Sarah Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Offices of Gavit of JPL. Further information is available on the Space Science and Earth Science, Washington, DC. web at http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds2 . At JPL, Dr. Fuk Li is New Millennium program man- ager, Dr. David Crisp is chief scientist, and Dr. Earth Orbiter 1 Barbara Wilson is program technologist. The Earth Orbiter 1 mission will fly three advanced land-imaging instruments and seven revolu- tionary spacecraft technologies. The advanced imag- ing instruments will lead to a new generation of 11-98 JGW lighter-weight, higher-performance and lower-cost imaging instruments similar to those flown on the existing Landsat satellites. Additionally, the mission will flight-validate a number of cross-cutting space- craft subsystem technologies which, if successful, will enable future Earth and space science missions to be conducted using smaller, lower-weight, reduced- power spacecraft buses. Three instruments - an advanced land imager, atmospheric corrector and a hyperspectral imager - will be flown on Earth Orbiter 1. Each instrument incorporates new land imaging technologies which will enable future Landsat and Earth-observing mis- sions to more accurately classify and map land uti- lization globally. Seven technologies reducing the cost, mass and complexity of future Earth-observing spacecraft will 5