 Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today for this NASA science town hall with Nikki Fox, the associate administrator for science at NASA headquarters in Washington. We have members of the science leadership team with us today. We're going to be sharing updates and and mostly today really, really focusing on questions. So for those of you who have attended these before. We, we often do a lot of presentations up front and then have a little time for questions at the end. We are going to reverse that today. We're going to just have some introductory remarks from from Nikki Fox, and we are going to try to give as much time as possible to the questions themselves with just a little wrap up at the end with having our division directors be able to give you some heads up on on what they are what the highlights have been. I am going to drop in a moment into this web x Chat where you can put your questions and vote them up a reminder. We are here to be as transparent as possible and we're willing to take the hard questions that having been said there is a hope and an expectation that they can be Phrased without ad hominem attacks or other other language that create sort of an unsafe environment. We've actually had people say that looking at the questions feels unsafe. And so I'm going to ask everybody to take that responsibility when you put your questions in. Please also note that when we answer them, I will do being some aggregating. So when there are questions, which are similar, we will answer them at once. And and also I want to come clean that in one case, a tough question was also phrased in a tough way and I rephrased it so it did not have some of that language in it because I thought it was an important question to ask us, but otherwise they are all exactly as you've written them. That's the time of my intro. Please, Nikki. There we go. All right. Thank you, Karen. Thank you so much everyone for joining us today. This is a slightly different format as Karen said for this town hall. But before I get into that, I want to personally welcome two new colleagues to our SMD leadership team. So, first of all, Dr. Lisa Connell, and I'm going to have you, you put your microphone on and say hello and the camera should move to you. Okay. See if you can say hello. Hello, Dr. Connell. There you go. There is Lisa. Excellent. So Lisa has been named the new director of the biological and physical sciences division and we're really excited to have her in that role. Lisa has been serving as the BPS program scientist for translational research and was also the lead for education and engagement since 2021 after serving three years as the BPS senior scientists for partnerships. So we're really excited to have her in this role. And of course, I want to extend my sincere appreciation to Diane Malarick, who has been serving as the acting BPS division director and Devon Griffin, who was serving as the acting BPS deputy director for the last several months. So great job, BPS team. And as if that wasn't enough excitement for one town hall. Also announcing that Dr. David Greenspoon has been named as the senior scientist for astrobiology strategy. And so he'll be serving as the agency's senior leader for astrobiology and will be spearheading efforts from NASA headquarters to ensure significant progress is made in the field. David brings a compelling vision for growing interdisciplinary collaboration and for assuring integrity of astrobiology science on NASA flight missions and also for communicating the excitement of astrobiology inside and outside the agency. So he will officially join our team on Monday. But of course, he's no stranger to NASA science and is certainly an esteemed member of the astrobiology community. So a little bit early, but welcome, David. So as Karen said, today's town hall is a little bit different from our normal format of highlight slides and then limited time for Q and a this time. I really wanted to make sure we, we kind of start with the Q and a and then I'm going to sort of wrap up with a couple of quick highlights. There are charts that actually have the, you know, the highlight slides that you can get from the NASA science webpage where you where you joined this meeting from. So I do encourage you to take a look at those because it has got a lot of the great stuff that we're doing in SMD. I have all of my leadership team with me today and I've asked them to join me so we can have a very candid and open conversation with you all about the challenges that we are facing. And walk you through our thinking. So as, as Karen said, even if we don't have all the answers yet and there are many questions that probably it's too early for us to really have those answers yet, but we will absolutely share our process and and do that. You know, when I took on this position, I kind of promised that I would be as open and transparent about our challenges and our successes. I love talking about our successes. There's always so much good stuff going on in SMD and we have an incredible impact with NASA science. But obviously, you know, you all can read the papers, watch CNN, you know that we are in challenging times. In the agency town hall last week, Senator Nelson noted that with a divided Congress, there are stormy budget seas ahead. And that is, of course, across the whole government. That is not just for NASA. The president signed into law a bipartisan budget deal, the fiscal responsibility act on June 3rd. This budget, of course, was great. It saved, it saved the US government from defaulting on our debt, which of course would have had catastrophic impacts, not just on the US economy, but on the global economy. So, you know, really great thing that that was that was signed. But under the terms of the budget deal, the FY 24 discretionary budgets for non-defense and non-VA spending would be held at roughly the 23 enacted levels. So we're now in the midst of the sort of annual 24 appropriations process, which began, of course, months before this budget deal was negotiated. NASA is still recognized positively in the overall picture. Challenges remain, of course, but NASA is still delivering. In facing these challenges, we've been having conversations about how to approach budget planning and how to balance guiding recommendations whilst minimizing impacts as much as possible with kind of all the levers and knobs and tools available to us. As always, the decadal surveys are a critical guiding resource, but we also have to consider additional impact from across the government that guides our priorities and our decision making. Impact suddenly, sorry, impact sometimes include delaying announcements of opportunity to help prioritize missions that are already in development. So things that have passed their confirmation review, KDPC, and are really moving on towards launch. We always try to protect our research and analysis programs. I certainly recognize that when budgets are challenged and missions maybe are not going ahead at the pace that we would want, then everybody really, really, really relies on that RNA program. And so we want to make sure we continue to prioritize that we try to minimize disruptions to international contributions and all while trying to support our cross cutting and enormously important activities across our early career space, our STEM engagement, our DEIA and many other focus areas. So our division directors will share a little more about their thinking when they answer the questions, but I do want to tell you that this is the time to share your stories. This is the time to tell your communities why science is important, why the science that we do is so critical and why science helps addressing the pressing challenges we face across the nation and across the globe. So this is the time to really make your voices heard. Science is interdisciplinary and cross cutting and speaking with one voice about the critical importance of science really helps to demonstrate and underscore that value. So I encourage every mission and every program to talk about all of the incredible things that you're doing and will do. But while you're doing that, talk about how synergistic it is across the whole portfolio. Use it as an opportunity, not just to talk about your mission, but to talk about whole areas of science and NASA science as a whole. Every mission and project kind of helps enable the next endeavor. And so the discoveries made in one area always help to fuel fundamental questions in others. This is when the community really can come together and unify behind a message that just underscores the importance of what we do. Science itself unifies us. Our work across the nation and around the world benefits people. In fact, our vision is to lead a globally interconnected program of scientific discovery that encourages innovation positively impacts people's lives and is a constant source of inspiration. There's certainly an urgency to our mission, particularly given the recent extreme weather events in the United States and around the world. And NASA, of course, is tracking and sharing the data, helping to provide solutions and getting that information into the hands of the people that need to make those critical decisions. The agency will always support science and you'll be hearing more of that in the coming months. So, you know, we stick with our overall theme that science enables exploration and exploration enables science. And so science and exploration are important and critical to national priorities and to each other. So I'll finish by saying, as we work through the budget planning process within the agency, I really want to emphasize that NASA has very strong bipartisan support. It's your successes that have made that possible and it's your successes that have inspired the world. So with that, I will hand it back to Karen and we will happily take the first question. All right. Thank you very much. I'm keeping track of the questions as they get voted up. And as I said, we will be doing some aggregating. The first question at the very top is what plans are in place to protect science research funding from cost overruns by Mars sample return. There are several questions along this line, just making sure that other missions throughout S and D are not affected. So I will pass this one to Lori glaze had the planetary science division. Thank you, Karen. And thank you, Nikki for the opening. Yeah, so this is of course a hot topic. It's certainly something that's on the minds of many people, particularly within the planetary science community. And I just want to let people know, you know, our job, my job is absolutely to make sure that the planetary budget remains balanced. And I take that job really seriously. We all do. I know Nikki does as well. We really want to make sure our research budget is protected. As Nikki said, it's beginning. That's one of our priorities. And that NASA missions in work, the ones that we have official commitments to that they have the best opportunity for success. The planetary decadal really laid out a plan that prioritizes Mars sample return and to complete it as soon as possible. But they also provided guidelines, right? They said to consider that if our plan, if the plans for the budget in any given year ever exceed 35% of the planetary budget, that we need to reconsider how we are, how we're running Mars sample return. It's still the highest priority, but we need to make sure we don't exceed that 35% of the planetary budget in any given year. That number that's given in the decadal is based on historical examples of Mars flagship missions relative to the rest of the planetary portfolio. So there's a lot of credence behind that number. It's a good number and I believe in the number that the decadal provided. So for the fiscal year 2023 right now, the year that we're in the Mars sample return budget is just over about 25% of the planetary budget. So right now still well below the decadal 35% number. Right now we're still in the process of designing Mars sample return. We're in phase B and so they're still maturing the design of the concept. So we don't know yet precisely what the cost, what the budget required is going to be. But we are taking that decadal guideline seriously and we're taking it into account. For example, scenarios that speed up the timeline would put us over that percentage number. So we know that we don't wish to do that. We know that that would be pretty damaging. So we really don't want to do that. We'll be re addressing this when the independent review board report comes out later this year. And we're making sure that when we do make that official agency commitment to Mars sample return that we have in hand the best possible estimate of the cost. And the schedule that's going to be required to execute Mars sample return successfully. So I just want to reiterate one more time that we take our external advisors seriously particular the decadal survey and bringing back samples from Mars was clearly laid out in to NASA as a priority for the planetary community. And it was also clearly laid out by that decadal survey that we do that implementation that we implement Mars sample return in a thoughtful way that doesn't imbalance our portfolio. So that's what we're on the road to doing and we will continue to use those recommendations as our guideposts as we determine what the appropriate path forward is for Mars sample return. Thank you so much Lori again aggregating questions there is another MSR budget one that I'm going to pass to Nikki Fox to answer which is can we ensure that any reallocation of funds from cancellation of MSR as suggested in the Senate budget stays within the science mission directorate. And does not get routed towards other programs and thanks Karen. So I mean obviously we have to follow the law that Congress lays out and the president signs and that is what we have to do. But as I said in my opening remarks I am really committed to working together as one agency. We're not going to put any program against another it's just honestly not the way we do business and clearly not the way I want to do business. Whatever our budget looks like SMD and NASA's exploration directorates are working really well together to achieve success in all aspects of NASA's mission. We explore to do science science enables exploration and we will continue to work together to maximize the science from NASA. Thank you so much there are some more MSR questions we'll get to as we go for now going to the second question on the list. How does the science mission directorate and the agency respond to the fact and tend to respond to the fact that some locations within the country where major NASA centers are based and where major conferences are held are becoming inherently unsafe to a portion of the workforce. It's a longer question you can read it there I will stop there but Nikki I am going to pass that one to you. Yeah thanks. So, I mean, we in SMD recognize that there is a lot more work to achieve full equality and safety across America. Members of several communities continue to face discrimination acts of violence and efforts to that undermine fundamental human rights. It's the policy of NASA that people deserve to live with respect free from fear and violence and are protected against discrimination. I'll note that this topic was also raised during NASA's most recent employee survey and we know it's been brought to the attention of the highest levels of NASA leadership. We know that NASA is planning to learn more and to see how we might address this. We're committed to learning more about how SMD and NASA can specifically support members of our workforce and their families. So please continue to bring these concerns forward. Speaking for SMD specifically we are concerned about negative interpersonal interactions, whether it's from internal or external entities, and we're developing a process to consistently and effectively respond to harassment conduct concerns. Please sort of stick with us. We'll have more information within the next few weeks on this process for reporting harassment issues. But in the meantime, and even after the process is developed, I'm going to be really, really clear that this matters a lot to me. We need people to feel safe and I encourage people to come directly to me when they need to. If you don't feel comfortable coming to me, find somebody that you do feel comfortable going to, whether it's one of my division directors, whether it's somebody at somebody in SMD that you just happened to know. But please feel free to come directly to me if you have concerns and I will do my best to address them. Thanks. Thank you so much. Moving on to the next question. Another budget question. What are the effects on SMD mission plans from the debt ceiling agreement signed into law in June? Another one for Nick. Okay. So I kind of tried to hit this in the introduction, but the bipartisan budget agreement was signed on June 3rd, and it was expected to keep fiscal year 2024 for non-defense and non-VA spending kind of flat at 2023 levels. So as a result, it is possible that NASA's final fiscal year in 2024 could be significantly below the $8.3 billion president's request for science, which of course we were happy about. It represented about a 6% increase above fiscal year 23, and it certainly allowed us to continue support for our priorities across all of SMD and earth science, planetary science, astrophysics. Heliophysics and biological and physical sciences. Deeper cuts in NASA's budget of course will have greater impact on our ability to innovate for the benefit of humanity and to lead the United States leadership in space. So we will continue to work through the annual budget and the appropriation cycle as always. And we will work to secure funding for NASA that supports critical advancements in our national posture, science, and our ability to inspire and to retain the future workforce. So we will continue to do the process as we always do. And as we have more information and as we as things start to crystallize, we will of course be communicating them with you directly. Thank you. Our next question will be for Karen St. Germain with Earth Sciences. She is the head of the earth sciences division. Can you elaborate on how earth sciences will respond to the most recent decadal? Many things do not seem to have been addressed yet and it's not clear that everything can be launched as proposed. I will add that there's a question lower down that specifically includes the earth systems observatory as well in that question. All right, great. So thank you Karen. So as we've been discussing for the last year or more, the core of our response to the decadal is the earth system observatory. Those in the decadal were those designated observables and that totals about a three and a half billion dollar investment for four of the missions, plus NISAR taking the first portion of the surface deformation and change observable. And in about half of that, excuse me, about half of that three and a half billion would be competed work. And it also leverages an additional more than a billion dollars of international contributions on top of that. We also have the new earth system explorers program. We've released the first announcement of opportunity where we will select up to four missions for step one and that the proposals are due for that on August 2. That's on top of continuing our venture program. So that's that's the plan. In terms of mission space, there's a lot more guidance that the cable gave us on integrating and streamlining our research and our impact or applied sciences. We're also moving out on that. That said, I want to acknowledge that there's a pretty significant disconnect between the resource expectations. And what we really have available to us in terms of buying power that was driven by a few can major contributors. First, the decadal assumed growth in the the earth science budget that at least in the years behind us is not was not manifested in our appropriation. So there's a loss of buying power there. Landsat next caught will cost us more than the decadal assumed and that's within that top line. COVID and subsequent supply chain has hit our buying power in the last five years. And of course, we're subject to those same budget pressures that Nikki already addressed. So we do have a disk and a gap there between the decadal expectations and what we will be able to. What we'll be able to accomplish on what timelines. That said, I want to be very clear that our team here at headquarters and in our program offices out in the centers are really working hard to try to maximize the science that we can accomplish within these resources. And that includes the missions themselves that I've just discussed, but focusing on advancing our research on advancing our cutting edge understanding of how the earth system works and increasing the impact of that science again consistent with the decadal. Thanks. No, I'm not on that. Now I'm on. Thank you so much. Karen. Um, we are now moving on to a question about the hybrid workforce. We are entering an era of widespread hybrid and remote work. How will SMD make this a successful environment for NASA science. There were some additional notes down below. How will SMD advocate for, for, for access to resources and tolerable policies. So I'll pass to Nikki for starters on that. Yeah, sure. This is a question I get very, very regularly and, you know, SMD is certainly embracing hybrid and remote work where we can. But there are obviously some activities that do require people to come into the office periodically. You know, that allows us also to really establish strong relationships and networks between our employees and leaders. And they're often done best face to face. It's that kind of growing that connective tissue between, between groups that makes us so effective. I mean, evidence has showed us that hybrid works clearly we worked throughout the pandemic. But we also do have to take make time for periodic face to face interactions and team building to kind of foster those strong productive working relationships. But of course, this looks different in different places. The aspects of our work simply do require people on site working together in person. And then there are many other aspects where we can rely on technology and other tools to keep us working together. So, I mean, we clearly expect this to be a work in progress. We rely heavily on our employee climate surveys to kind of give us information to assess how we're doing. And, you know, assess work life balance, which is a very important thing of one of one of my important things that I like to stress with my own team. And of course, we will continue to sort of pivot and adjust so that we can get the best solution that works for everybody. Does any of the other division directors, please feel free to like comment, jump in if you want to add anything. All right, excellent. All right. All right, then moving on. Our next question is about the New Horizons mission. Given the tremendous global success of the New Horizons mission and its team of experts, why is NASA cutting its funding and re competing the mission team. I will pass that to Lori. All right. Thank you again, Karen. So just to kind of back up a little bit, remind folks that in May 2022, so a little over a year ago, the planetary science senior review indicated that New Horizons is in a unique location for making observations that are relevant to astrophysics, and to planetary science based on the reviews that were conducted at that time. The heliophysics science was very clear that that science was the strongest science that was identified the science that could be done from the spacecraft in its current location. So the decision made at the SMD level SMD decision was made to explore transitioning the management and operations of the mission to the heliophysics division. However, the team, New Horizons team have made it quite clear that they don't want to be a heliophysics mission. They would definitely prefer to remain a planetary mission. However, looking at the senior review results, if you look at the planetary science assessed by the senior review, that planetary science was determined to provide really only marginal improvement in knowledge beyond what's already been achieved. Through that senior review process, New Horizons was approved for implementation of a second year, a two-year planetary science extended mission, at which time it was made clear the intention of possibly transferring the mission operations to heliophysics once the extended mission was complete. If funding for another extended mission is not found within the heliophysics mission portfolio, the planetary science division may consider an option to direct the mission to go into hibernation at the end of 2024. Hibernation really does not preclude future use of the spacecraft or the option to consider fly by of a new target identified sometime in the future. While a hibernation mode isn't free, the New Horizons mission team has successfully demonstrated hibernation mode previously for extended periods of time, with the longest being a recent stretch from June 2022 through March 2023 or a period of about nine months. So we are still actively trying to find a path forward here. So thank you. Thanks, Laurie. The nature of these questions is the very dynamic and the next one's going right to you too. Just everyone voted it right up. So we have a new one in the list, which is about the DART mission and do we have plans for any more deflection missions? Great question. The DART mission was an enormous success. We're so proud of the whole DART team and our whole planetary defense program for successfully for the first time ever in humanity changing the path of an asteroid or another body in our solar system. So it is a really, really exciting conclusion from that mission. Very, very successful. But we actually have other technologies that we would really like to demonstrate as part of our planetary defense program. In fact, if you look at the Decadal survey, one of the highest priorities, the number one highest priorities actually to identify, find and characterize those asteroids that could be potentially threatening. We've now demonstrated we can move one, but we actually need more information on where all of the dangerous asteroids are. So we know which ones we might need to protect ourselves from. But right after that, and we are working on that with NEO surveyor, which is already in development and past confirmation. But past that, the Decadal survey then recommended that the next technology and capability we really need to demonstrate is the ability for rapid response. So once we find those asteroids, either through NEO surveyor or some other mechanism, ground based telescopes. Once we find those, we need the ability to rapidly send a mission to those asteroids and get more information on size, composition, physical structure and that sort of thing. So we know what kind of deflection mission we might need. So those are really the highest priorities right now above being able to do another deflection experiment. Thank you. And everything, as I say, it's very dynamic for those of you who are occasionally typing something into the Web X or reminder, we are taking questions off of the, the link that has been dropped in there. But we are next going to a question about the geophysics dynamics constellation, geophysical dynamic constellation, which we will have Nikki Fox and Peg can speak to Peg Luce who is the acting director for heliophysics if she wants to join in. How is the pausing of GDC our decadal priority and reduction of the heliophysics budget justified when other components of the science mission director had had an increased budget or smaller cuts. I'll start off and then kick it kick it to Peg. Obviously, SMD supports all of the missions in all of its divisions. And unfortunately, sometimes we have budget constraints that just mean that we have more exciting ideas than we have resources to support them. So we can't always do everything we want to do. And that means you have to make hard decisions pausing GDC was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. I was the heliophysics division director and love GDC, but it was the right decision to make at the time. We still of course support the GDC constellation. We are and we're really, really, really grateful to our colleagues who are serving on the decadal panels and commenting on the importance of the science. We're working hard on GDC and FY 23 and looking at what a pause can mean. So, Peg. Thanks, Nikki. I just want to reiterate that we are working on GDC that we appreciate the continued involvement and excitement about this mission. We have instrument developers working. We've had our first science team here meeting recently first in person science team meeting. And we are just waiting to see how the budget process unfolds and in the meantime, keep the teams moving forward and making positive progress while we wait for the pause to resolve itself. Thank you so much. Our next question is back to planetary science. Any update on when the next new frontiers announcement opportunity is expected to be released Lori glaze the division director for planet science. Thank you, Karen. I know this is also a question that is of a lot of interest to our planetary science community. We're the new frontiers program is a is a really critical part of our of our portfolio and certainly a really important program for new solicitations. I recently back at our planetary science advisory committee meeting back in June. I did let folks know that we do anticipate a delay of the new frontiers. It had been scheduled and had been on track for a release in the fall of this year, the final AO. But as I said back in June, I already indicated that it's going to we knew that there would be some delay. We are in fact in the process of releasing a community announcement with more details. But I have to say as you heard from Nikki at the at the outset here what we've been learning over the last few weeks since June. If the planetary science funding levels that are anticipated as a result of this type budget environment, if those are actually realized over the next two or so years. I just want to tell folks it is unlikely we'll be able to solicit new frontiers. Perhaps not before 2026. So I think folks need to take a deep breath and and think about that for a moment. But as we look at trying to make the decisions and prioritize in this really tight budget environment, you heard Nikki say an emphasis on honoring the commitments that we have on our agency. Missions that we have commitments for protecting RNA and trying to keep our missions going forward and protecting those parts of our portfolio. The AOs are the things that really need to be pushed out in order to make sure we support the things we've already committed to. Thank you. Oh, I did have a second part of that actually let me let me just make a note. I think there's a second question about what missions would be on that list. So let me go ahead and address that one while while we're on the new frontiers. I'll just say that if the delay is in fact significant. NASA intends to or would ask the committee on astrobiology and planetary science or our caps committee to provide a recommendation on which mission themes from the new frontiers five and new frontiers six lists should be included in that. So, so we would pause and make sure we got guidance from the national academies. And it would also provide an opportunity to update the science objectives for the mission themes based on recently released the recently released planetary decadal survey. So, I'll, I'll close it with that. Thank you, Karen. Great. Thank you so much. As I track all these some some things are getting higher. Pass where we'd already answered so I missed something apologies when I'm finding some now. This is about the independent science funding. It is internal science funding model. Sorry. I wouldn't want to just say ISFM. The internal science funding model and grants so inflation is eaten away at the purchasing power will future funding levels be adjusted to address this. I think there's some other questions along the way about the ISFM so a general answer about those. Yes, so the internal scientist funding model or ISFM Karen said was was created to try and reduce the funding hunt for our NASA civil servants. It's not intended to compete with other sources of funding and it is really based on cooperation between the centers and between the science leaders at headquarters. You know, so when inflation is kind of attacking everywhere. And so it just no we will not be like just just upping ISFM we will we will increase it as other other funding becomes available to increase across the board. We put a lot of emphasis and focus on our RNA funding in general and of course ISFM is a piece of that. And so as RNA grows, then we would expect that piece of the RNA fund to grow with it, but we will not be independently or raising ISFM only unless the the whole RNA fund goes up. Thank you so much. The next one will be for you as well, Nikki, and this is about will SMD create a staff position focused on inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility issues whose role is to interface with non NASA partners grantees and contractors. Um, so, you know, I kind of already mentioned, but this this topic is obviously very important to me. And I'm actually I really, really am heartened by the number of questions and an advice that we get on this topic. And I've had several engagements already this week and this has been a really great discussion topic at SMD and at NASA. We are sort of integrating DEI into everything we do from where I sit, you know, bringing a single person in to interact with non NASA partners isn't isn't the answer. I want my whole team to be thinking about this and interacting with people. You know, we we in in SMD we actually refer to DEI as idea, because we think the inclusion is the most critical piece. And so inclusion is paramount and we're increasing our interaction with non traditional partners through grants contracts, cooperative agreements, etc. And we're expanding our programs for things like dual anonymous reviews of proposals to to ensure that there's no bias in in any of our proposal reviews. And we're being very thoughtful about our communication efforts, both in terms of whom we use as spokespeople and in terms of reaching non traditional audiences. One of the fundamental tenants of our open science program in fact is to proactively make sure our data is easily accessible by anyone who wants it, including traditionally underserved groups, but really including anyone who wants to interact with NASA data. To lower the boundaries and make it possible for anyone to come and kind of enjoy enjoy NASA science and and do science with with us. So, you know, it's very important that people see themselves in the workplace at all levels, including positions of leadership. And I want to stress, again, this is a community effort by everyone in SMD. We do have specific liaisons within the directorate the focus on DIA that are professionals that that help us with our mission. We don't have plans to just create a single staff position. Again, I have an expectation that we all are committed to the effort and we all need to be involved. Thank you very much. Two questions in a row for Mark Clampen, who is the head of our physics division. The first is one of the prospects for funding pre phase a studies for the habitable world's observatory leveraging the success of web. And the second question on a separate topic, but both to in a row for you is what is the status of NASA, the NASA studies of commercial proposals to re boost the orbit of the Hubble space telescope. Okay, so let me start by addressing the habitable world's observatory. This is the major recommendation of the 2021 astrophysics Decatur survey. And we are taking this, you know, a step at a time. So we're very focused on applying lessons done from the development of the web space telescope to future missions and the habitable world's observatory is the first of those. And we determine how to establish and pursue the science mission goals we wanted to focus on by working with the broader science community. To that end, we're currently funding precursor science at about a level of $3 million per year to learn about science areas that will actually inform future mission designs. And we also have just initiated a call for a group called start, which will focus on science trades and how they informed the architecture of the observatory. So we have a number of activities that are already underway or just getting started. And once funding is received at the levels commensurate with the Decatur surveys recommendations for habitable world's observatory will plan to release future course for the academic and commercial community to help mature that mission concept further. And I should just say that we're also very focused on this approach that the Decatur survey is recommended, which is to pursue the technology maturation first before we get into full scale formulation of the design. And this is one of the very big lessons we learned from the James Webb space telescope. So we want to make sure that we do this following the guidance that we got from the Decatur survey and stay very focused on the core scientific goals, which are the search for habitable world's around nearby stars and a general astrophysics program that's primarily focused on the ultraviolet coming to the second question, which addresses the status of our commercial proposals for reboosting the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope Hubble, as everybody knows continues to produce, you know, fantastic science and I just note that, you know, coming back to one of the earlier questions, Hubble made a very significant contribution to the dark mission as well by actually observing the impact as it occurred. We issued the RFI for these proposals in December 2022 and asked for interest in demonstrating commercial capabilities to boost the orbit of a satellite. So we got eight responses to that RFI and we are currently reviewing them. And part of that review means looking at the capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope itself and how this will work in concert with the telescope and make sure that the telescope itself remains safe during the process. So the bottom line answer is that we're currently working this process. Thank you so much, Mark. It's looking like we have time for one more question before we do our wrap up from our division directors. So the next question in line is about the biological and physical sciences division here. And it's combining questions. The BPS division is significantly underfunded. When will we ensure that adequate funds are allocated for it? And then there is sort of a follow up further down, which is how will we implement the decadal survey under current budget restraints? So I'm going to toss this together to Nikki Fox and our new head of the BPS division, Lisa Cardam. Thank you. And thank you for bringing this to light whoever put that question in there because we're really looking forward to the decadal survey to come out. And those recommendations, those are going to arm us with the information we need to help advocate for that budget. This is the first time BPS will have a decadal survey while we've been under the science mission directorate. So we're incredibly excited about the impact of that. It's hard to know right now what we're going to do until we receive the results from the survey and have a chance to analyze those. Our goal once we have a chance to get through that is going to share it with the community and then follow it as closely as possible and implement as much as we can within our budget constraints. And I'll just comment briefly on the budget for BPS. You know, we are in constrained budget times. We want to continue to grow BPS as part of the SMD family. The science of BPS, if you haven't had a chance to check it out is amazing and inspiring and wonderful. So please look at all the great things that they do. And together, as we all continue to talk about SMD science and the impact of it, we hope to see all of our divisions growing and getting the resources that they need to be able to do the amazing science that they deliver. And so with that, I am going to challenge my division directors. Is that okay, Karen? Alright, less than one minute each. What you're excited about in the next two months. Laurie, go. I get to go first. Yay. So the next, I may go a little beyond two months, but there is some really exciting stuff coming up in planetary science or asteroid autumn. I need everybody to be paying attention and watching as we as we head into asteroid autumn. We've got an anniversary of the dark impact. We've got the Osiris Rex samples from Bennu coming back and entering into the Utah desert in September on September 24th. Pay attention. That's going to be awesome. And then a few weeks later in the middle of October, you'll get the first reveal of those samples when they're down at Johnson Space Center. And then kind of in between those two events on October 5th is when the launch window opens up for psyche to go visit one of only a handful of metal asteroids that we even know about. So something we complete discovery mission, absolutely incredible mission will launch October 5th. And then we've got a Lucy fly by of a near earth asteroid happening in November. So going to be exciting times. That is amazing as everything possible we could do with an asteroid. Pretty much Karen on earth. All right, there's so much I could talk about. But what I'm going to focus on is the opening of the earth information center. We cut the ribbon on the earth information center on June 21st with the NASA administrator. And senior leaders from our six founding partner agencies. These are the agencies that take the science that the NASA community does, and they make it usable and available to all parts, many communities within the US and globally. Our first day open to the public. We had hundreds of visitors. We've had hundreds daily since, including girls and Boy Scouts groups and all kinds of groups coming through that. We've already got bookings through the fall. And what we're doing is talking about the science that our community does what we know how we know it and why it matters. And this is shining a bright light on a part of NASA that is not quite as well known as the rest of the agency. Thanks. I encourage you if you are at NASA headquarters, East Lobby, come see the EIC. We love it. Absolutely open every day. Open every day during the week. Okay, so from earth to a star. Thank you, Nikki. So I'm going to stretch the two months because in two months and 16 days, there will be an annual eclipse across North America and the kickoff of the heliophysics big year. We've talked about it a lot, but we keep adding resources. So please check out solar system dot NASA dot gov slash eclipses. We have put out for one thing a brand new thing is training materials. So for people who are interested in what science do you do in eclipses and want to learn more about why we are so excited about them. There's a very nice package of training materials. Also, in this time period, we will soon be announcing the next step one selections also a little more than two months away. But in the October timeframe, and I know people have been waiting to hear when that would be. So I want to get that in there. Thank you. Okay, so keeping the theme of stars. Thank you. So we have a lot going on in astrophysics in the next couple of months. We're eagerly awaiting first light from the Euclid mission, our partnership with the European Space Agency. And we just had a launch a few weeks ago. In two weeks, we will have a habitable worlds conference to discuss and explore technologies for starlight suppression. Any of the web cycle to science programs I think about to produce new and exciting discoveries. So I'm eagerly awaiting some of the first results from cycle to science. In a couple of weeks at the end of August on the 26th, we will have the launcher criticism, which is our partnership with Jackson, the Japanese Space Agency. And this is new technology that would allow us to study the high energy universe. And in a couple of weeks, we will be issuing our first ever probe call for proposals. And this is one of our major recommendations as well from the Decatur study. So we're really looking forward to seeing some interesting proposals and more stunning images from web. Yes. Yeah, do check out the charts that are posted for just. We'll just check out web images. They're just beautiful. Lisa. I'm bringing it back down to earth, bringing it down to just above. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, we already talked about the decadal survey, which we are on target for delivery somewhere in the late August, early September time frame. So we are incredibly excited about that. And I wanted to highlight that next week, August 1st, it's an evening launch. We have 19 where we have some really exciting BPS science on board. And 1 in particular, we have the cold Adam lab science module going up. So what this is, it's going to allow us to do even colder experiments. And so as if as if that's possible. And it's going to allow us more capabilities and greater atomic number. So we're looking forward to that and many more opportunities. Thanks. All right. Thank you. And last but not least, what's going on on the moon, Joel? You see 1 of the 1st to commercial Luna payload services landers has been completed and is waiting on its much vehicle to be ready. A 2nd is very close to being completed so we can anticipate the 1st to clips landings coming up soon. And the fall will also do the selection of the geology team for the Artemis 3 1st lunar human landing mission. And I want to point out to the community that NASA has publicly posted on the NASA dot gov site. All the work that's been done looking at future human exploration, moon to Mars objectives, as well as the architecture for human spaceflight. We recommend that people in the community read that, send any comments, for example, to the analysis groups for moon and Mars. And the NASA will also get those comments. Thank you. Thank you. All right, that's great. And then, because she never gets any time on camera, my fabulous deputy Sandra Connolly, what are you excited about? Okay, so I'm not going to pick my favorite children because I love them all, but I will say, I mean, honestly, I love my job. I am truly blessed by this role because of all of these amazing things. Science really never sleeps and it is a global opportunity. And I'm thrilled by the advancements and the, you know, the revelations that come out every day, all the work that my colleagues and all of you do. So I'm just looking forward to everything that's been said here and the findings that are going to continue to be found from the existing operating missions and the data that's available online. All right. Thank you, Sandra. I'm wonderfully said. So that's kind of in the wrapping up phase. I'm doing your job on take care and sorry. I'm so excited about what we're doing. No, I'm I really, you know, we really do. Thank you for putting in your questions. I know, as always, even though we try to really focus on it, we didn't get through them all. We'll try and answer them online if we can, but please do keep your questions coming. Please keep your concerns were really serious. Any, you know, harassment complaints, any diversity inclusion ideas, things that you, you know, that you want to talk to us about. Please reach out to me or to any of my fabulous team here. And with that, Karen. You wrapped it up. The only thing I will say, because we didn't get to it in the questions was we were going to address the web modification that has been happening. And I want to make sure everybody knows that beta beta dot science dot NASA dot gov did just go live. It is the beta version. There's going to be a lot of work to make sure that that is everything we have dreamed. It could be and I just wanted to pay a note and unfortunately we didn't get to that question today, but that there's a very robust set of plans in place to make sure that content is transferred over and nothing is lost as appropriate. So that that link just got dropped in. So thank you so much. And with that, thank you everybody for being here today. Thanks, Karen.