The NASA Science Mission Directorate Planetary Science Division intends to release a Cooperative Agreement Notice (CAN) soliciting team-based proposals for membership in the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) in January 2017. Step 1 proposals will be due around March 15, 2017, and Step-2 proposals will be due in early June 2017.

The NASA Astrobiology Institute (http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/) was established in 1998 as an institution of scientific collaboration across disciplines, across organizations, and within and among its participating Teams irrespective of their geographic distribution.

The goal of this CAN (Cycle-8) is to maintain a multidisciplinary institute by selecting focused, interdisciplinary teams that compliment without replicating the strengths of the continuing teams. The teams selected this cycle will replace the teams selected in Cycle 6 and it is anticipated that the number of teams selected in Cycle 8 will be about the same number selected in Cycle-6 (five teams).

Further information will be posted through the NSPIRES system at: http://nspires.nasaprs.com

Questions and comments related to this announcement should be addressed to Mary Voytek, NASA Astrobiology Institute Program Scientist, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Washington DC 20546 (E-mail: [email protected]).