This amendment announces a new proposal opportunity in Appendix E.7 entitled "Concept Studies for Human Tended Suborbital Science". NASA recognizes the advancement of the commercial spaceflight industry and the potential for human-tended suborbital flight experiments enabled by this capability. The imminent emergence of human suborbital flight for commercial purposes offers an opportunity for a new mode of research for the scientific community: human-tended suborbital investigations for cases where having a human in-the-loop would increase the scientific return of flight experiments.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is soliciting research investigation concept studies to inform the formulation phase of a possible new program to fly government-sponsored payloads and researchers on commercial suborbital systems with the intent of advancing SMD's science goals and objectives.

This solicitation is for concept studies to identify areas of SMD-sponsored science that can benefit from the capabilities that these flights offer over traditional suborbital flights, to scope the range of investigation requirements and the distribution of community interest by research discipline, and to bring potential investigations to a greater level of flight readiness to support NASA's decision regarding whether to implement a pilot research program of suborbital flight operations in 2010-2011.

Notices of Intent (NOIs) to propose are due August 6, 2008. Proposals are due October 8, 2008.

On or about July 10, 2008, this Amendment to the NASA Research Announcement "Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) 2008" (NNH08ZDA001N) will be posted on the NASA research opportunity homepage at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ (select "Solicitations" then "Open Solicitations" then "NNH08ZDA001N").

Technical questions concerning this solicitation may be addressed to Dr. John Karcz, Code SS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, CA 94035-1000; Telephone: 650-604-5174; Email: John.S.Karcz@nasa.gov. Programmatic questions concerning this solicitation may be addressed to Dr. Kelly Snook, Planetary Science Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546-0001; Telephone: (202) 358-2302; E-mail: kelly.snook@nasa.gov.

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