Wired has a slightly breathless short about the Terrestrial Planet Finder... to be launched in 2016!
I guess they didn't get the memo
TPF is off the table.
Downgraded to small scale lab feasibility demos, the engineering team disbanded.
Even if they change their minds, again, there is no possibility of TPF(c) or anything like it to fly by 2016.
Back to the drawing board. Literally.
There will be a planet imager, eventually, it may be a radically different concept mission, there are a couple of very interesting concepts being thrown around, but their feasibility is not demonstrated.
If NASA doesn't do it, then ESA will.
Ideally both will do a series of missions.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
IXO and LISA are dead and disbanded as NASA missions.
We are looking at a very thin pipeline and few new missions for a while, unless there is drastic new direction from above and strong guidance on funding.
NASA is a mission oriented agency.
This is especially true of Astrophysics.
At any given…
I heard it from a man who,
heard it from a man who,
heard it from another...
ok, it was an e-mail, but it confirmed the strange tale I had been told.
NASA is about to do a Mad Max on its Science Missions.
Five missions enter, one mission leaves. Literally.
NASA has many houses. Within one is the…
Today, NASA announced three future key missions preselected as part of the Discovery program named GEMS, TiME and Comet Hopper. This is an important announcement, which was eagerly expected by our community.
The NASA Discovery program is a low-cost mission ($425 million FY2010) program aimed at…
The National Research Council's Assessment Committee for the Beyond Einstein program had a townhall meeting here in the Windy City.
Much to my surprise, I was there also.
The Beyond Einstein program at NASA is in trouble. With cuts and squeezing by the Exploration Development effort, the original…
Well that was cruel. I was thinking, "it's back from the dead?? Zombie mission????" But no, no no.
This upset me so much that I started speaking in puns.