[meteorite-list] Curiosity, Cassini Among 7 Extended Planetary Missions

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/41709curiosity-cassini-among-7-extended-planetary-mi
ssions

Curiosity, Cassini Among 7 Extended Planetary Missions
By Dan Leone 
Space News
August 29, 2014

WASHINGTON - NASA approved extensions for all seven missions that were 
vetted by senior scientists in the agency's 2014 senior review of operating 
planetary science missions, a senior NASA official told SpaceNews Aug. 
27.

"We sent out the letters to the projects [and] those letters state that 
we're not canceling any missions," Jim Green, NASA's Planetary Science 
Division Director, said after a meeting at the National Research Council 
in Washington.

Green declined to discuss specifics, although he did say NASA would force 
some of the missions to run "leaner and meaner [by] cutting back in various 
aspects."

The details of the senior review board's findings, and NASA's formal response 
to those findings, is to be released the week of Sept. 1, Green said. 


The seven missions up for review were:


* The Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity: the car-sized rover that 
landed on the red planet in 2012 for a two-year primary mission and has 
been roving ever since, despite sustaining rock damage to its aluminum 
wheels.
 
* The Cassini Saturn orbiter, which arrived at the gas giant in 2004 on 
a four-year primary mission.
 
* The Moon-mapping Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched on a one-year 
primary mission in 2009.
 
* The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, which landed in 2004 on a 92-day 
mission and is still roving. 
 
* The Analyzer of Space Plasma and Energetic Atoms-3, a partially NASA-funded 
instrument aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, which 
arrived at Mars in 2004 on a primary mission of just under two years.
 
* Mars Odyssey, an orbiter that arrived at Mars in 2001 on a 32-month 
primary mission.
 
* The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which arrived at Mars in 2006 on a 
two-year primary mission.