13 Apr 2011

Given the long time that has elapsed since the original appointment of the PI teams on the Cassini-Huygens mission in 1990, it has been felt desirable, to foster the continuing science output from the mission in its new Solstice phase. To this end, a new possibility for broader participation to the mission from the wide scientific community has been defined, i.e. the "Participating Scientists".

The proposal submission will be centralised at NASA and the evaluation and selection will be done jointly by NASA, ESA and ASI. European proposals are encouraged and should include a letter of support from their national agency or funding institute. The letter of support should state the will to provide the applicant for funding to support his/her participation to the meetings of the team he is associated with (2 meetings/year per team are envisaged), and to the Cassini-Huygens Project Science Group meetings (currently 3 per year, 2 in US, one in Europe). The maximum duration of the appointment of the PS will be for 3 years.

Details regarding the Cassini-Huygens mission as well as the Participating Scientist role and the allowed scientific investigations can be found in the Announcement of Opportunity, available at the URL below (which is also linked from the right-hand menu).

The Announcement of Opportunity will close on 8 July 2011 with a deadline for (non-mandatory) Notices of Intent on 10 June 2011. Proposals for Participating Scientist to the Cassini-Huygens mission should be prepared in accordance with the information provided at:

http://tinyurl.com/42fqxvk
(C.10 Cassini Data Analysis and Participating Scientists)

and should be submitted electronically through the above web site with a copy to the relevant funding institution.

I would welcome if you would circulate this Announcement widely to interested colleagues.

Yours sincerely,

Prof. D.J. Southwood
Director of Science and Robotic Exploration

NOTE: The announcement letter is available as a PDF from the right-hand menu. However, the closing date for this AO and the deadline for the Notices of Intent were changed after the release of the PDF. The former dates (respectively 20 May 2011 and 29 April 2011), which are stated in the PDF, have been superseded by the dates stated in red on this web page.