WASHINGTON — NASA is preparing for the discharge of a brand new decadal survey for space research that the agency hopes will provide guidance on research to pursue on the International Space Station and methods to transition that to industrial successors.
The National Academies announced Aug. 23 that it should release the decadal survey for biological and physical sciences research in space Sept. 12 at a public event in Washington. The document, titled “Thriving in Space,” will prioritize research in space biological and physical sciences over the subsequent decade.
The first customer for the decadal survey is NASA, and the pinnacle of the agency division that manages that research said in a recent interview that she hopes the decadal provides clear guidance on the topics it should pursue in the subsequent decade.
“The best scenario coming out of his decadal can be very targeted priority focus areas,” said Lisa Carnell, director of the biological and physics sciences (BPS) division in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “A decadal that has 101 priority areas doesn’t have a priority area.”
Together with that focus, she said she’d prefer to see “decision rules” included within the decadal, just like those incorporated into decadal surveys in other science fields but not within the previous BPS decadal. Those rules specify what needs to be reduced or eliminated if funding falls wanting budget projections made within the decadal.
The upcoming decadal covers research through 2032, past the planned retirement of the ISS in 2030. NASA is supporting several efforts to develop industrial stations that may function successors to the ISS, called industrial low Earth orbit destinations, or CLDs, by the agency.
Carnell said that while she is going to search for guidance within the decadal on methods to manage that transition, it might be difficult given the rapidly evolving industrial environment. “A matter I even have for the decadal and its sustainability over 10 years is that space has develop into so dynamic,” she said. “How will the recommendations give you the option to adapt to this evolving environment?”
Her division has already been energetic in planning for a transition from the ISS to industrial platforms. That included a white paper earlier this 12 months that outlined all the present and planned research capabilities of the ISS, which she said was intended to make sure the industrial station developers were fully informed about ISS research. “We wanted to provide them the chance to see all of it and see what their interests were in providing it.”
The BPS division has also been trying to arrange for a brand new era of business research through a program called Commercially Enabled Rapid Space Science, or CERISS. The initiative, announced last 12 months, could eventually involve flying scientists on private astronaut mission to the ISS to give you the option to conduct the research on the station moderately than having NASA astronauts perform it.
While a proposed budget increased needed for CERISS didn’t materialize for fiscal 12 months 2023, delaying that effort, Carnell said it stays a long-term priority for her division. Such researchers, she said, can be analogous to payload specialists who flew on shuttle missions but weren’t full-time astronauts. “They’re moving forward,” she said of those efforts, if slowly. “We’ll see what the decadal comes out with.”
Suborbital research, she said, could provide a step towards flying scientists on orbital flights. NASA’s Flight Opportunities program now allows researchers to fly with their experiments on industrial suborbital vehicles, and the agency’s Suborbital Crew, or SubC, program is exploring methods to enable NASA civil servants to go on such flights, potentially as soon as next 12 months.
“Change is tough, but it surely also brings lots of opportunity and excitement,” she said on the whole of latest research opportunities enabled by industrial platforms. “There can be some growing pains, but I do think it’s going to be an enormous profit for NASA and for the space industry.”
While the main target of BPS research has been on the ISS, Carnell said that one other topic she is going to search for the decadal for guidance on is activities beyond LEO. The division is already planning for research on the lunar Gateway and on Artemis missions, including “getting close” to flying a tissue organ model experiment on an Artemis lunar lander.
“The long run of exploration demands that we transcend LEO, so what I would like to see them call out is what a part of our portfolio needs to be dedicated to beyond LEO and the way much we must always remain doing in LEO,” she said of the decadal.