PCOS Mission Studies
NASA-ESA Athena Study
NASA is working with ESA to define the possible NASA contribution to this ESA-led X-ray mission.
The ESA Athena page, which should be consulted for information about the mission, is here: http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/athena
One U.S. scientist, Randall Smith of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has been selected for the SST. Robert Petre of GSFC and Michael Garcia of NASA/HQ are ex-officio members. The full membership of ESA's Athena SST is given in the list below (see http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/athena/team-membership).
ESA's Athena Science Study Team
Xavier Barcons (IFCA, ES)
Didier Barret (IRAP, FR)
Anne Decourchelle (CEA Saclay, FR)
Jan-Willem den Herder (SRON, NL)
Andrew Fabian (Cambridge, UK)
Hironori Matsumoto (Nagoya U, JP)
Kirpal Nandra (MPE, DE)
Luigi Piro (INAF, IT)
Randall Smith (CfA, U.S.)
Richard Willingale (Leicester, UK)
January 5, 2017: AAS Athena Splinter Meeting
December 14, 2015: Athena SST/SWG/US Co-Chairs Reports
In November 2015, the Athena Science Study Team re-opened applications for membership to the Community Working Groups. US scientists should apply directly via the ASST web site (rather than via NASA) by the Dec 31, 2015 deadline. More information is available on ESA Athena websites for both the Athena community working group structure and membership as well as the application form.
In July 2014, NASA issued a Dear Colleague Letter asking for community participation in the ESA Athena Science Study Team.
In November 2014, NASA issued a second Dear Colleague Letter asking for community participation in the Athena Science Study Team Working Groups.
PCOS News
Program News and Announcements
31 May 2019
Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA SMD Associate Administrator, invites the science community to a live-streamed national colloquium on Wednesday, June 5, 2019 (4:00–6:00 pm EDT) on "Writing Successful Mission Proposals: Observations from NASA." To attend in person at the University of Colorado campus, please RSVP
here. The live stream will be available
here. For further details, please see the colloquium invitation. »
Details
17 May 2019
Following up on a Nov 2018 mission PI diversity workshop, the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is planning a number of exciting opportunities open to community participation, including a new website for potential PIs, pre-review mission panels to ensure diversity and reduce conflicts of interest, research proposal writing workshops at conferences and for PIs developing their first proposal, career development positions, and a presentation by SMD Associate Administrator Thomas H. Zurbuchen on proposal statistical analysis. Please see the Associate Administrator's full update
here.
16 May 2019
June 1 2019 is the deadline for filling and submitting the technology gap submission form. We encourage members of the community to identify such gaps between today's state-of-the-art and what will be needed for missions identified by the 2010 Decadal Survey, the 2018 Astrophysics Implementation Plan, and/or the 30-year Astrophysics Road Map. Please see the
Astrophysics Division Technologists letter for more details, including how to submit a gap.
25 March 2019
NASA HQ Astrophysics Division has created a task force to assess NASA's role in strategic optimization of Gravitational Wave Electromagnetic Counterpart (GW-EM) astrophysics. See the
Terms of Reference for more details.
1 February 2019
Dr Terri Brandt confirmed as PCOS Chief Scientist.
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