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Opportunity Summary:

NASA Headquarters, through its Science Mission Directorate (SMD), issued the EXPLORER SCIENCE MISSIONS OF OPPORTUNITY solicitation as an Astrophysics Explorer Missions of Opportunity Program Element Appendix (PEA) under Solicitation Number NNH12ZDA006O APEXMO. This call was released September 14, 2012, and ran through December 14, 2012, with a required Notice of Intent to Propose due October 12, 2012. It was published as Amendment 3 to the Second Stand Alone Missions of Opportunity Notice (SALMON 2) Announcement of Opportunity, and the full text was made available via NASA NSPIRES. NASA also scheduled a preproposal workshop on September 28, 2012, to walk prospective teams through expectations and process details, with supporting information posted on the Explorer Program acquisition site.

The opportunity sits within NASA's long running Explorer Program, which is built around Principal Investigator (PI) led missions. For this appendix, the emphasis is on astrophysics missions that directly support NASA goals focused on understanding the origin, structure, evolution, and destiny of the Universe, along with the search for Earth-like planets. In practical terms, NASA is asking for well-defined science investigations that can be flown as a Mission of Opportunity rather than a traditional full stand-alone Explorer spacecraft mission, allowing science to be accomplished by leveraging existing platforms, partnerships, or smaller implementations.

NASA specifies that proposed investigations must fit one of the Mission of Opportunity categories defined in SALMON 2. These include Partner Missions of Opportunity (where NASA contributes an instrument, science team, or other elements to a larger mission), New Missions Using Existing Spacecraft (repurposing or reusing an existing space asset), and Small Complete Mission Missions of Opportunity. The solicitation also explicitly welcomes investigations that would fly on Ultra Long Duration Balloons (ULDB) or on the International Space Station, reflecting NASA's intent to consider lower-cost or alternative flight opportunities alongside more traditional spacecraft-based approaches. One notable exclusion is that Partner Missions of Opportunity tied to the European Space Agency parent missions Euclid or JUICE were not being solicited under this call, meaning teams could not propose participation in those specific parent missions as their pathway under this appendix.

Eligibility is intentionally broad. Participation is open to essentially all organization types, both U.S. and non-U.S., including universities, companies, nonprofits, NASA Centers, JPL, other government agencies, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, and University Affiliated Research Centers. The funding instrument is identified as a cooperative agreement under CFDA 43.001 (Science), and there is no cost sharing or matching requirement stated, lowering barriers for proposers who may not have independent funds to contribute.

Budget rules are central to how NASA frames the competition. The PI-managed mission cost cap is set at $60 million in FY 2013 dollars for an Explorer Mission of Opportunity, and $30 million for an ULDB-based mission. NASA also signals how many awards it expects it can afford: the approved planning budget is sufficient to select and execute either one Mission of Opportunity at the $60 million cap, or potentially two Missions of Opportunity if both are ULDB missions or otherwise come in well below the $60 million cap. This provides a clear message to proposers that lower-cost, high-value concepts may increase the overall number of selections NASA can make.

The selection approach described is a single-step process with no competitive downselect. That means teams submit full proposals by the deadline, and NASA plans to make selections without an initial phase where multiple concepts are narrowed to a smaller set for later, more detailed submissions. For proposers, this generally raises the importance of submitting a fully mature, well-costed, and well-justified proposal package on the first try, since there is no built-in second chance through a formal downselect stage.

NASA also notes a parallel opportunity for individual researchers: a separate solicitation for Explorer U.S. Participating Investigators (Explorer USPI) was released at the same time under ROSES-12 as Appendix D.11 (NNH12ZDA001N APEXUSPI). That companion call is aimed at U.S. investigators seeking to participate in Explorer-related investigations, complementing the mission-level submissions under this Mission of Opportunity appendix.

For communication and clarification, NASA directs questions to the Astrophysics Explorer Program Scientist, Dr. Wilton T. Sanders, at NASA Headquarters. Questions are handled via email with the subject line "Astrophysics Explorer MO," and NASA commits to answering inquiries by email while also posting responses to a public FAQ page on the Explorer acquisition website. Importantly for teams that want to ask sensitive questions about fit or interpretation, NASA states it will preserve the anonymity of individuals and institutions submitting questions.

Key administrative details reflected in the listing include the posted and creation dates (August 31, 2012), the closing date (December 14, 2012), and an archive date of August 31, 2013. Overall, the opportunity is designed to draw PI-led astrophysics concepts that can deliver high-impact science within a defined cost cap by taking advantage of partnership opportunities, existing space assets, balloon platforms, or ISS access, with an application process that is open to a wide range of institutions worldwide.

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