 Welcome, everybody. I would like you to welcome you to this webinar on the changes that we recently did in, well, that we made in the most recent amendment to ROTUS with regard to providing more even access to commercial suborbital platforms, providers, and thereby increasing our available suite of launch platforms that we think will allow greater science. I'm Thomas Hams. I'm in the Astrophysics Division. And amongst other things, the suborbital lead in astrophysics. We have also present here Dominic Benford, who is the overall APRA lead. And I'm going to go through this part that deals with the APRA solicitation. And I'm going to keep that short and succinct and then hand it off to Lukas because he's going to talk about all the new launch platforms that we have now integrated into APRA. And that should be really the style of the show. I'm going to be focusing on the solicitation, so the text that you see here is lifted from the solicitation. I encourage you to read that. But I will highlight those items that are A, changed recently in ROSES-22 and are important to note for this deadline, and or those that are in reference to commercial platforms. All right, so you should have received on October 5, the 55th Amendment to APRA-22, which amongst others announced this webinar, and also deferred the deadline for both APRA and SAT for the mandatory NOIs to November 4, 2022. In ROSES-22, all suborbital investigations, be it rocket powered or balloons, are required to have an NOI stage payloads requirements document uploaded to the NOI, mandatory NOI, and the templates for that PRD can be found under other documents on the Anspires website. And the payload requirement document will be later on discussed in full by Lukas. So the proposal due date for the full proposals is unchanged and is the 15th of December, 2002, and all proposals must be accompanied by a final payload requirements document. So a brief overview of ROSES. ROSES is a very broad and part of the omnibus ROSES solicitation, and it covers a solicits basics research for proposals for investigating the problems that are relevant to NASA's astrophysics and astronomy and includes research over the entire range of the electromagnetic, gravitational waves, and particle astrophysics. Awards for suborbital investigations can be up to five years, but shorter are typical. The emphasis on this program element is on technologies and investigations that advance NASA's astrophysics missions and goals. After investigations, maybe advancing all technology level, the full range of technology levels from TRL 1 to 9 through 9. And so this is different to SAT, the strategic that has a specific entrance and exit requirement. So this is overall to ROSES. I'm sorry. Here we go. The category for proposals that may be submitted should be addressed the best possible of either advancing the state of the art of detectors that are applicable to future space missions in astrophysics, science and or technology investigations that can be carried out, and this is on suborbital platforms, balloon sounding rockets, CubeSats, and others, and supporting technologies or laboratory research that are directly applicable to space astrophysics missions. And accordingly, we have these five categories down here, and I will be specifically talking about the suborbital class investigation. If you, and it's covered on the next slide, if you have, for example, a detector development, something that's focused on detector development, but it includes a suborbital flight, please categorize this as a suborbital investigation. The same is true if you have laboratory astrophysics and want to do a laboratory astrophysics measurement, and it entails a suborbital flight that would also then be a suborbital investigation. Again, I want to stress that proposals must upload an I know I stage payload requirements documents along with the mandatory and I that will allow NASA to make an I know I stage assessment of what is the appropriate launch provider. The opportunities that are offered by suborbital investigations are that they provide a unique opportunity, not only to execute intrinsically meritorious science investigations, but also the technology advancement that we discussed earlier, that is applicable to future flight missions, supporting technology, and also preparing future leaders for NASA's flight missions, such as early career of researchers, graduate students, as well as engineers. Here we go. The suborbital platforms. This is not a broader palette to choose from we have the the NASA NASA's own sounding rocket and balloon, and I'm not going to go into that in much greater detail but but the links can be found here. And so what is new in roses 2022 is that we have incorporated and put on a streamline and put on a level footing with with NASA's own the commercial contracts of orbital flight providers that are provided by through the flight opportunities program. In the space technology mission directorate. And so we expect that with this diverse set of platforms, smaller payloads with a con with a smaller cost can take full advantage of these capabilities of higher flight flight cadence and provided that these proposals are meritorious. Ultimately, we expect that this platform suite that is now expanded and complimentary will lead to greater science yield and impact. I want to point out that NASA is reserving the right to select the final launch provider, though the provider, so though the proposal has the ability to express a preference. The NOI stage payload as a payload requirements document is for the initial assessment and the five with the NOI and then we have a final payloads requirements document that must be submitted with the full proposal and that will provide the final assessment of the launch providers assigned by NASA. So here are some additional points that are specific merit criteria that are specific to sub orbital investigations. And so in addition to the the general merit criteria that is intrinsic merit of science. There's also the degree in which the advancement of technology readiness of a detector supporting technology is advanced and the degree to which the readiness of early career research the future leaders of NASA's future missions. Advanced and proposes should identify which one of these three categories is the main focus of it is the science investigations technology development or training of the next generation. Here's an overview of of the. We have a 15 through 20 here in this table and then we have sub orbital investigation detector of development supporting technology and laboratory astrophysics and as you can see sub orbital investigation have always been a core component of opera. This is a little bit of boilerplate. It's an eye chart. I refer you to to the solicitation. I had it included here for completeness. And then finally, in opera, we have we have the different we have different portfolios and that are listed or disciplines that are listed here and the respective technical offices. So if there are any questions to specific components, then you should reach out to your respective discipline response representative. And I think that closes it for me. I would ask you to hold questions until we are done. And I would like now to turn it over to Lucas to tell us more about the platforms that are now available. More streamlined to proposes in appra. And what I failed to mention earlier on, I'm sorry, is that this is also of course that should have been on the first slide. Many of the details about appra about astrophysics. Aside the, the path that we have chosen in roses for commercial sub orbital is also applicable to of course, our friends in heliophysics L cast for example, came out with an amendment, and there we will follow the same path where we have to play with a pay NY stage payloads requirements document, and then payloads requirements document for the full proposal. And so these things are probably applicable to both appra and l cast. Lucas, let me stop sharing and hand it over to you. Okay, thanks Thomas. Let me see if I can. A little slide here slides. Okay. Hopefully, everybody can see my slides there. Thomas, thank you so much again for introduction and for the opportunity to be here today. It's great to have a chance to be here and talk a little bit about the work we've been doing to add the commercials orbital platforms into the current roses 22 solicitation. Particularly, these additions are, as you just mentioned, are certainly applicable to both appra and the heated physics cast programs. So, my name is Lucas moxie. I work with the flat opportunities program and I'm also serving as the lead for the commercials of orbit and innovation initiative with the SMD. So the want to start off by mentioning that the goal for this slides is really two fold. First is to highlight the newly incorporated commercials orbital platforms that were added to roses 22. And secondly, to provide some guidance to the suborbital aspects of the application process for both of these. As you mentioned, they are following the same application process. So we'll, we'll briefly walk through that through the presentations today. So, basically, I want to start off by mentioning that SMD is seeking to build on the advances achieved through the NASA sounding rocket and balloon programs. By incorporating commercials, water platforms into the SMD's portfolio and to further support the needs from the investigators within roses. So one of the objectives is to do this by means of to complement along the current platforms available through the traditional NASA provided platforms. And really the goal for this is to complement the currently available traditional NASA provider platforms that are available to SMD researchers through the balloon office and the sounding rocket program office. And just as importantly is to really seeks to augment the number and type of suborbital platforms that are available to the suborbital research communities. And the way to attain this is by basically NASA seeking to leverage off the tools and resources available within different mission, different directors. For instance, SMD is working with specifically with the space technology mission directorate, in particularly the flight opportunities program to leverage the current contractual mechanisms that flight opportunities has for working and gaining access to the some of these commercial suborbital platforms. So this really helps open up several new avenues for potential research. So the party on that I wanted to just briefly mention what it's like to give a little bit of more context, what flight opportunities is. So, flight opportunities is a program within SMD that seeks to enable suborbital flight testing of promising technologies or our investigations that require suborbital environments, and it achieves this by means of commercial flight providers. And there's light opportunities has a contractual mechanism called idea queue, which is stands for indefinite delivery in the quantity contracts commercial contracts with multiple companies. So this allows the flight opportunities to leverage off the different type of vehicles and the different capabilities that each has for accommodating a particular research or technology payloads in order to conduct the suborbital flight tests. And just as an example, here's a picture of one of the platforms from Blue Origin in this case that is routinely used by flight opportunities program. So, for awareness, the flight opportunities program has four primary types of vehicles and their idea that can it can leverage by means of this idea queue contract mechanisms. I want to highlight that not all of these are available for roses, but I do want to mention that these exist in general. I'll talk in a second of what specifically is available for roses 22. But in general, fly within these has these four different types of vehicles available, each very unique characteristics and flight environments. So we have a rocket powered vehicles. We have higher to the balloons. And we also have the vertical takeoff vertical landing vehicles and parabolic flights. So, in addition, let me see, is it still. Okay, so, so these are the slides. Thank you. You can see slides. Okay, perfect. So these are the primary vehicle types that we have. Having said that, there's different types of instruments or, or elements are tested as part of these light suborbital flight tests to fly between these. So, of course, we have sensors and instruments which are, which are certainly applicable to APRA and a Jocas. We have mechanical systems and many others that are shown in this slide here. But again, just want to highlight that there's multiple aspects of technologies and instruments that coming to play that can be tested by means of these platforms. So, circling back to specifically to roses 22. So for roses 22, SMD is leveraging the idea, idea, Q contracts for five particular platforms. So we have two, sorry, three rocket powered vehicles, which includes airspace, blue origin and virgin galactic. And in addition, we also have to how to the balloon providers, which includes worldview and a star. So, this slide shows a nice summary of some of the different capabilities that the different providers can attain and how they could be of use for the research community. So profiles one and three shown in blue and green show the rocket powered vehicles and they show approximate altitudes of at least 80 kilometers that allow for multiple minutes of microgravity environment for for research applications. And also, in some instances, depending on the flight provider, there's possibilities for allowing for payload rejections and releases from the from the main vehicle for reentry applications. Having said that to also one mentioned that because as we talked about earlier because there's different types of vehicles. In, for instance, here, some vehicles allow for incorporating incorporating payloads internally within a pressurized environment benign environment where others allow for both external internal and external or or just external external depending on the vehicle. And then, lastly, we have another profile in in red, which represents how to balloon profiles. This is approximately the altitude shown here is not necessarily specific it can vary depending to the needs and capabilities of the provider. But it reflects the typical balloon, how to balloon profiles of, you know, ascent to about 30 or more kilometers in altitude and varying degrees of flow time, followed by descent and that descent phase could allow for potential payload rejection as well. And again, these three profiles, which are shown here are applicable to these five providers that we were mentioning earlier, which includes Blue Origin, or upper space, Virgin Galactic, Worldview, and Airstone. So. I just wanted to just shows some brief slides for gives a highlight of the different vehicles that are on contract through flight opportunities and available through SMD for both upper and HDL cast. Certainly encourage any interested researchers. If there's particularly particular more details that are of interest. The researcher can certainly reach out to these companies directly and they will be able to provide it all the information directly to them as well that varies with very specific and comprehensive documentation for the capabilities and. And. Availabilities for each of the vehicles. Yeah. Capacities. So, one example here is we have Blue Origin origin is a rocket power vehicle and it targets altitude of approximately 100, 100 kilometers. It allows it for about 15 minutes flights, flight time approximately, but primarily allows for this three minute approximately three minutes of microgravity. And it allows for. Carrying payloads both internally or externally. Internally, for instance, there are some multiple options for different capacity and volume requirements for payloads. So there's a single locker or double locker multiple or combination or custom solution for those. So there's and these these lockers are included within the crew cabin, which allows for a pressurized environment for those instruments. Another example is Virgin Galactic comparable in nature with the previous one is a rocket power vehicle. A little bit longer flight duration. However, also altitude of at least 80 kilometers with a target microgravity environment duration of between two to three minutes. And just like in the first case is multiple solutions for payloads that could be carried. Typical configurations are single lockers, double lockers, but there's also flexibility for different, a different configuration as needed for accommodating a payload. Another example is upper space upper space provides a vehicle more in line with the family as a sounding rocket vehicle. This particular vehicle allows reaches approximately 115 kilometers altitude and allows for about four minutes of microgravity environment. Typical payloads are about it can accommodate is approximately 36 kilos and it can allow for internal and also potentially external payloads as well. And again, as I mentioned earlier, I certainly encourage anybody interested to learn more about what the capabilities for each of these payloads could be to reach out directly to these companies to to get at the full comprehensive information and documentation from for each of these vehicles for each vehicle. And then moving on to the how to the balloon platforms, we have Aerostar and they have the zero pressure balloon vehicles. And these are very flexible vehicles that can allow flights of different durations they can be anywhere from hours to to to longer duration flights to days or so. It can be more than 30 kilometers altitude and with that wide variety variety of payload capacity can be 45 kilos, but heavier can certainly be accommodated. And then, and of course, just as mentioned for other vehicles, these can also allow for, you know, release of vehicle for release of payloads as shown in this picture that can be used for testing reentry technologies or instruments or sensors. And lastly, one also mentioned how to for how to balloons we have the vehicles provided from worldview also that can be very flexible in nature can be can be long duration flights or short duration flights as needed, according to the payload and investigation requirements. Targeted altitude can certainly vary. And just like the amount of weight mass that the vehicle can carry. And there's different types of vehicles. And again, like in previous cases, certainly encourage anybody interested in really learning all the details about each of these vehicles to reach out to the to these providers. But as included in some of the information here for the contact information, they will they will be able to provide the specific vehicle documentation, which really details all the information and capabilities for it. And then also wanted to mention. Shifting gears a little bit wanted to mention some of the important guidelines for opera and HL gas solicitation sauce as Thomas mentioned earlier there are some important things to keep track as we are as if there's an interest for the suborbital aspects for this. For this solicitations. So, particularly, first and foremost, I want to highlight researchers to. Ex to ensure they view the and follow all the guidelines that are included in the. In section 8 C of their roses summer solicitation. There's a lot of valuable information there. Multiple, multiple aspects are covered in regard to suborbital research. So definitely encourage. Proposers to to to study that section. Also, as Thomas mentioned earlier, so both for opera and HL cast, there's going to be a mandatory, but brief, the good news is very brief. No, I stage payloads requirements document. And this is basically is a very short form and very, very short form that provides some very basic information about the vision payload needs and some examples and I'll give it next slide. I'll give a brief example of what that solicit that document looks like, but it provides some very basic information about the vision payload needs and some examples and I'll give it next slide. It provides some very basic information that allows NASA to understand the needs of the researcher and get a better sense of what. What could be potential vehicle candidates? I think could be. These could be either from the traditional NASA provided platform or if could be from a potential commercial. Vehicle that again, through the flight routine program. So again, it's just to provide some insights of what the researchers predicted. Envision needs preliminary needs might be and some of this information includes that. Okay, what kind of vehicle type is going to be needed? What the dimensions of the payloads are are envisioned what mass. Launch requirements, flight dates, envision flight dates, minimum maximum altitudes, etc. This is a very, very high level overview of some of the expected needs and requirements for these research payloads. And again, so it's going to be used by NASA to do a preliminary assessment to understand what could be the most compatible survival platforms to accommodate these needs. And certainly want to highlight that this information is not used as part of the evaluation process. It's just used just to understand what could be potential platforms to help accommodate the needs for these payloads. So following the NOI PRD, so following the NOI stage, there is going to be a also a mandatory proposal stage, a payload requirements document. And just like in the previous example, this is also going to be available through Inspires. And in this case, it's configured as the next step of to collect a little bit more detailed information of what the payload is going to need and what the mission requirements are going to be. So to really get a little more detailed information and to help better understand this, the best compatibilities with different vehicles available to NASA. And then also one important note is very important notice to note is to mention that there's that there's no quote or cost estimates related to flight services should be included in the proposal. So proposal should not include any information regarding this. And then lastly to mention that if selected for a commercial flight platform, NASA flight opportunities will be working with the PI. We're going to have a campaign manager that will serve as a liaison between the PI and the commercial flight provider. And here's an example, this slide, this slide shows the that basic preliminary PRD form, payloads requirement document, which outlines some of the basic information of that's envisioned for the payloads. Again, examples include what kind of, what type of vehicles, orbital vehicles envisioned, the approximate dimensions of the payload, mass, how much power it might be using. And then other requirements such as launch locations, like date requirements, if there's any pointing requirements for the payload, et cetera, et cetera. So this is a short form that just to get that preliminary understanding of the payload itself and its needs. And start to kind of conclude here. I just wanted to just mention to the community that there is, flight opportunities typically has a monthly webinar, community of practice webinar where we, flight opportunities program, has invites different panelists every time to talk about different topics that are of help that can be of help and assistance to both seasoned and new suborbital researchers alike to provide information about how to, how to navigate the process for executing, for preparing and executing a suborbital flight. And this, there's a lot of, there's been some really valuable webinars, these are all recorded so they're all available through the flight opportunities website. And certainly encourage everybody to attend or also register to do the newsletter that the flight opportunities regularly puts out that has information for these webinars. But there's a lot of lessons learned and a lot of valuable information, a lot of perspectives and insights from researchers that have flown that can be of great help for as preparation for upcoming. Research investigations and features as well. And, and then lastly, just wanted to share some little bit more information about what flight opportunities program itself. That here said link to the website but also some contact information if there's particular questions regarding commercial suborbital and large vehicles and the roses 22. My name is there because moxie and my email. I'd be glad to help answer any questions. I mean, come on. And Thomas, I think that's that's all I have. Yeah, thank you for that. I think that there were some, so there were some issues for some to see the slides. I think what we're going to do is put these slides on the, on the. Science NASA of suborbital website. In a collated fashion in a timely manner so that they're there for you and that the web links contained there and also accessible. With that, let's see other questions. Do you want to open the floor for the question. And answer session. Alrighty, there are no questions asked so far, but if anybody does have a question, please raise your hand and I will go ahead and meet him. So we'll go ahead and start with Joe. It's the RSD payload and I'm near hers as a PI. We've been thinking about experimenting with a couple other opportunities with this payload regarding new instrumentation and mechanical systems. This would require a suborbital flight based on the time requirement for microgravity. And we're working with the current operation standards are for a man suborbital at the moment. There's no way we could get this to be an automated system that the ability to have a attended payload is probably in your wheelhouse because copy that. Thank you. I see a question here. Regarding a NOI. So just want to mention. There is so the the forms are identical for both HL gas and opera. So all all PRD both the NOI stage and the full proposal stage. Those the the forms are different from the NOI stage and the full proposal stage, but both of those two forms are going to be identical for both HL gas and. Lucas, did you hear the question that was previously asked? No, sorry. I did I thought sorry maybe I missed so regarding this orbital and human tended. Yes. Oh, yeah, so the there is at this point there is there is no specific opportunities for that there is there is. Yes, so I guess that for now for a time being that's not applicable for for roses 22. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and unmute John next. John, did you also submit their question in the chat. Is that the same question? So exos has a current ready vehicle. We've made upgrades to it. The FAA is actually classifying our license is the same vehicle. So we have a flight on April 26 of 2023. We're still tentative, but that's probably our date. And then we are going to turn that vehicle around and do a reflight having proven the vehicle with a NASA payload that we have from our prior campaign under ready. Who do we talk to about that? And basically how we certify that vehicle after the flight that, yes, we achieve greater than 80 kilometers and we are now qualified just a couple days later for that flight short of having Paul De Leon and NASA out there while we're doing it. Yeah, so I can take that. Hi, John. So, um, yeah, so that's that's a very specific point of question. So I think it's something that we can. It can be discussed directly with the fly between this program. Um, I'd be glad to to help route that question for you. Um, excellent. And then is LCAS and ARPA. Those are 2 separate proposals we have to submit or NOIs we have to submit. Am I correct on that? We fill out the form for ARPA. And then we also put in an NOI for LCAS. Yeah, dummy, you want to take this? Sure, I'll take this. So APRA and LCAS are 2 separate programs, depending upon the science investigation or the technology development you're trying to achieve. So it is likely that a proposer would only be submitting to one or the other and that you would submit a PRD for each proposal that you submit. So certainly, if you're submitting both to APRA and LCAS, you would submit to PRDs, but also if you submit 2 proposals to APRA, they should each have their own PRD as part of the notice of intent and as part of the full proposal. Yeah, we're actually the flight provider, so. I thought that might be the case. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Sorry, go ahead. Well, so for clarification, so the proposals here are for science investigations that want to utilize platforms available within the solicitation. For the question that was just previously asked with regard for flight provider, I think Lukas might correct me if I'm out of line here, but I would suggest you should reach out to the flight opportunity program to talk to them. So this is for science teams that want to utilize the platforms available. We have changed the process, allowing more streamlined access to commercial providers. If you are a commercial provider, then I would encourage you to talk to the, I would assume it is flight opportunities and see what is required to get an arrangement with them. Yeah, Thomas, I just wanted to confirm. Yes. I think that's more, more specific to fly opportunity discussion. So we can discuss that offline email or such. Alrighty. Thank you, John. And thank you, everyone. The next question is going to be coming from John Moses. So we go ahead and unmute him so you can go ahead and start talking, John. There we go. John is texting that he's still muted. Hello. Hello. Hey, John. I could hear you. So I could try and stick charm. So I'm the L cast program scientist. And I just wanted to make a bit of a clarification on it. I don't know if it matters in the end, but the for the. For the appra and the L cast solicitations, the NO eyes are actually different. It's the this payload combinations form. That's the, that's the very same. And so, for example, you certainly needed, you, it's certainly expected that you would have a different. Science emphasis. Either on the, you know, he leaves, he leaves physics or an astrophysics, although we do have overlap, right? It's possible to put some something in there on, you know, who, you know, analogs and those kinds of things. But they, but you need to slant the, you know, you need to satisfy a different culture here for the, for the specifics of the proposal. And in the L cast, we've been emphasizing the science traceability matrix as the quickest way to communicate ideas of what you're trying to do and what you'll need for your mission. And so we put in the added requirement of a science traceability matrix as part of the NOI understanding that this is their initial stab at it and things are likely to change between NOI and the proposal. But just to be clear, the appra has not added that to their to the requirements for their for their submissions of the NOIs. And that's all I wanted to say. Dan, as always, thank you for joining. Thank you for for contributing and it was neglectful of not mentioning you as the the corresponding counterpart to to heliophysics. Your Dominic essentially the lead for for L cast in heliophysics. So thank you for your contribution. I prefer to be in the background anyway. Emeralds Greece is my motto. That's that's quite all right. So thank you. That is all of the hands raised in questions asked. Does anybody else have any additional questions? If not, I would encourage folks to to look at the science dot NASA dot gov suborbital website soon we will have this presentation. And you will also find the Lucas on my email if further questions would come up later on. Actually, there is one in the chat Thomas from John one. Yes, yes, I just saw that coming up while I was speaking. So the I was trying to be careful. So this is in a question is that does this not apply to Cube sets and that is correct this this payloads requirements document is not applying to Cube sales. I hope I was sufficiently clear to say that is for rocket powered vehicles, rockets and and balloon payloads. Cube sets are suborbital class missions and they're not required to have the the PRD. That's feedback that we're going to use in the next round of of APRA. Thank you for that. All right, any more questions. If not, as I said, we'll we'll have the slides to the website. You will find they are also Lucas is in my email of their follow up questions. And I would hand it then back to you for closing remarks. Thank you very much for everybody attending. All right, thank you Thomas and thank you Lucas and Dominic for joining us today for this town hall and thank you to everyone who is an attendee. We appreciate you joining us with that. We are going to go ahead in this town hall and you will also find the recording available in the same link that Thomas has been mentioning about with the presentation and his emails with him and Lucas. Have a great rest of your afternoon everyone. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you everyone. Thank you.