PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011 Contact: Diane Ainsworth FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 8, 1994 MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR INNOVATIONS Mars Global Surveyor demonstrates NASA's new approach to streamlining the development, deployment and on-orbit costs of new spaceflight missions. Features of the Mars Global Surveyor project include: * Fast-track in development; costs constrained to $100 million or less per year. * Uniform mapping capability, obtained with low- altitude, sun-synchronous orbit. * Moderate, five-year mission lifetime. * International collaboration with French-supplied data relay system that will relay information from Russian as well as future U.S. spacecraft on Mars' surface. * Utilizes existing infrastructure and hardware to achieve rapid launch readiness. * Initiates NASA's decade-long exploration of Mars by both orbiters and landers. PROJECT MANAGEMENT * Capped, cost-driven management approach; project management staff significantly reduced. * Fast-track schedule with built-in performance measurement to assure on-time readiness for launch in just 28 months. (On average, planetary spacecraft development in the recent past has taken about 66 months or five-and-a-half years.) * Shared launch vehicle engineering and launch site support personnel with Mars Pathfinder mission to minimize personnel and costs. * Colocation of JPL project personnel at spacecraft contractor's facility. INDUSTRY PARTICIPATION/PROCUREMENT INNOVATIONS * Full industry participation. Twelve Phase A contracts awarded, four to small businesses, in less than one week using streamlined approach. * Rapid request-for-proposal preparation. Request-for- proposal prepared, distributed and reviewed by integrated project team using electronic network. * Draft request-for-proposal provided to industry 10 days following NASA go-ahead. * All industry comments addressed at industry briefing. * Evaluation approach design to maximize mission return within capped budget. * Simple, innovative fee approach that warrants on- orbit performance and rewards cost control. * Contractor selection and contract award completed in eight weeks, compared with an average five to six months on similar procurements in the past. SPACECRAFT IMPLEMENTATION * JPL maintains Mars Observer-pioneered on-orbit performance award for spacecraft contractor. * JPL and spacecraft contractor personnel will team to share in development activities. * Spacecraft contractor will use inherited elements and new technology to minimize schedule risk and provide adequate margins for completion of sublevel system tasks. * Contractually required documentation of task completion and developmental progress will be reduced significantly. SCIENCE IMPLEMENTATION * Internationally accepted science objectives. * Principal science investigators will manage their hardware and science investigations to assigned cost caps. * Preserve existing operations infrastructure by maintaining remote science operations sites. Remote science instrument command, analysis and data processing reduces travel costs. * Merge science hardware and science investigation management. * Immediate availability of science data to science teams through use of the Mars Observer-pioneered project database. FLIGHT OPERATIONS * Use existing ground data system. * Combine ground data system testing and flight operations training. * Flight operations system redesigned to: -- Eliminate a layer of management; -- Provide a centralized command tracking database; -- Ensure electronic document distribution; -- Establish a seamless uplink process whereby commands are generated by a single team; --Establish a single downlink team for performance assessment. SMALL AND MINORITY-OWNED BUSINESS PARTICIPATION Small and minority-owned businesses participating in the Mars Global Surveyor mission will represent 33.3 percent of the prime contractor's hardware and software procurement. Technologies that will be provided by small and minority-owned businesses include: * Solid state recorders * Propulsion valves * Solar panels * Gimbal actuators * Central clock * Testing * High technology material EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH Mars Global Surveyor will participate in a vigorous educational outreach program to promote excellence in America's educational system and help expand U.S. scientific and technological competence. The focus of these educational outreach efforts will support science, mathematics and space mission development curricula at the kindergarten through 12th grade levels, provide educational enrichment for teachers and a better public understanding of science. Core Thrusts * To establish national partnerships for the dissemination of educational resources to national teacher associations, educational advocacy groups and aerospace industry educational associations. * To establish a science education model that will link students to the Mars Surveyor program through parallel projects that will allow them to interact with program managers, engineers and scientists. * To establish partnerships with faculty at centers of higher education, using a science education model project for teacher enhancement. * To establish regional science centers for teacher enhancement, student instruction and dissemination of resource materials at the home institutions of the Mars Surveyor program's principal investigators. Educational Products * New science lesson plans on Mars exploration, to be incorporated into standard science course curricula. * An online database on Mars exploration for schools, libraries, museums and planetariums. * Educational television programs for national broadcast. * Speakers, facility tours and mission reference materials. Support for Educational Technology Utilization * Near real-time distribution of images and other science data from Mars may be used as source material for the classroom. * Use of television, video tape, online public access computer sites such as Spacelink and JPL's image library, CD-ROMs and Internet as primary means of distributing information. #####