Jan 26 1999
From The Space Library
NASA announced that it had selected, from among 35 proposals, five candidates for participation in its Medium-Class Explorer (MIDEX) program. Each of the candidates received US$350,000 to conduct a four-month implementation feasibility study. NASA planned to study these proposals rigorously over the following five months, before choosing the two MIDEX program participants. The five proposals selected for further study were 1) the Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer, a three-telescope space observatory for studying the position, brightness, and physical properties of GRBs; 2) the NGSS or Next Generation Sky Survey, a four-channel, supercooled, infrared telescope designed to survey the entire sky with 1,000 times more sensitivity than previous missions; 3) FAME, the Full-Sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer, a space telescope designed to obtain highly precise position and brightness measurements of 40 million stars; 4) the AMM or Auroral Multiscale MIDEX Mission, a formation of four identically instrumented small satellites in a near-polar, highly elliptical orbit; and 5) ASCE, Advanced Solar Coronal Explorer, a powerful solar telescope, which would reveal the physical processes in the Sun that lead to the solar wind and explosive coronal mass ejections. NASA had also selected instruments from two proposed MIDEX missions for technology-development funding. NASA awarded US$700,000 each to Richard E. Rothschild of the University of California at San Diego, to develop an x-ray detector for studying black holes of all sizes, and to Gary R. Swenson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to develop detectors for studying waves in Earth's upper atmosphere
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