Special Notice regarding the Fifth NF5 Community Announcement
On Sept, 7, 2022, NASA released its fifth Community Announcement Advanced Notice regarding the Forthcoming Release of the New Frontiers 5 (NF5) Announcement of Opportunity (Link here: https://newfrontiers.larc.nasa.gov/NF5/)
In the announcement, the “Venus In Situ Explorer” (“VISE”) theme was omitted from the list of allowed Mission Themes.
VEXAG has requested from the NF5 program office clarification of, and rationale for, this change.
The 12 May 2021 NASA Community Announcement on NF5 indicated that the results of the Decadal Survey would guide the NF5 solicitation, and the Decadal Committee responded on 25 May 2021 that it would retain the existing New Frontiers mission theme list [OWL, p22-30].
As the Venus Assessment Group, we are seeking the thoughts and inputs of the Venus science and technology communities regarding this decision by NASA, so that we may accurately represent your views to the upcoming CAPS meeting in late September, and to NASA as they gather feedback for the NF5 Draft AO, due out in November.
A Google form that can be filled out anonymously is available here: (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeDl_4U_3vsi5RYTcMQnK4w684bUKxNbXNSIRc0c2g_tMwMrA/viewform). We hope to compile feedback and discuss by Friday September 23, 2022 ahead of the CAPS meeting. We’ll accept later responses, but can’t guarantee we’ll be able to consider them before CAPS.
NASA wishes to have feedback on the Community Announcement by October 31, 2022.
Sincerely,
Noam Izenberg, Chair, OBO the VEXAG Steering Committee