The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) issues this DRAFT Standard PI-led Mission Announcement of Opportunity (AO) to solicit community comments.
This DRAFT Standard PI-led Mission AO represents a restructuring of previous NASA AOs for PI-led missions (e.g., 2006 Discovery Program AO, 2006 Mars Scout Program AO, 2007 Small Explorer Program AO). It is the product of an effort by NASA (the "AO Simplification Team") to simplify and remove burden from the community in generating Step 1 proposals that respond to AOs. The AO Simplification effort has solicited comments from the proposing, evaluating, and implementing communities. There have been several community announcements, town halls at science conferences, and community workshops to discuss the pros and cons of AO Simplification and specific ideas with the community. The AO Simplification Team has received over 700 specific suggestions from the community and has considered all of them. A White Paper has been developed by the AO Simplification Team that captures the rationale for many of the decisions that were made in writing the DRAFT Standard PI-led Mission AO. That White Paper will be posted on the same NSPIRES website as this DRAFT AO.