Reviewers say Curiosity rover 'lacks scientific focus'
An independent panel of scientists slammed the $2.5 billion Curiosity Mars rover's management team in a report released Wednesday, saying the mission's plan "lacked scientific focus and detail."
The review board accused the rover's ground team of inadequately using the rover for science and ranked Curiosity's scientific merit near the bottom of a list of missions under consideration for extensions.
The biennial senior review issues recommendations to NASA on whether the agency should grant funding to continue operating probes beyond their primary missions. The missions up for extensions this year were Curiosity, the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn, the Opportunity Mars rover, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Mars Odyssey probe, and U.S. contributions to the European-led Mars Express orbiter at the red planet.
NASA awarded two-year extensions to all of the missions except Cassini, which was promised three years of funding until it is scheduled for a controlled crash into Saturn in 2017.
"The senior review committee came back and said unequivocally that these are all extremely important missions," said Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division. "They really are a big bang for a buck because they're in place and making great measurements, and we don't have to launch them. They're really cost-effective for the American people."
But Curiosity, one of NASA's most recognizable science missions, was ranked near the bottom of the senior review report's ratings. Cassini's proposal for a mission extension received the best grade from the senior review.
Read the rest:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n...4seniorreview/
NASA defends mission plan as rover reaches Mount Sharp
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/msl/140911mtsharp/
