National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Earth System Science Pathfinder

The Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Program is an innovative approach for addressing Earth science research, providing periodic "Windows of Opportunity" to accommodate new scientific priorities. It includes a series of relatively low-to-moderate cost, small to medium-sized, competitively selected, projects that are built, tested, and launched in a short time interval. This approach gives the program the flexibility to take advantage of opportunities presented by domestic and international cooperative efforts or technical innovation.

The ESSP Program seeks to contain project and mission costs through commitment to, and control of, design, development, and operational costs, which are capped. It is responsible for the entire project life-cycle—from definition, through design, development, integration and test, launch, operations, science data analysis and distribution.

ESSP missions are peer-reviewed science investigations selected from proposals submitted in response to biennial Announcements of Opportunity (AO's) released by the Office of Earth Science. At least two ESSP missions are selected from each AO and led by a principal investigator (PI), who is responsible for science integrity, assembling the mission team and the overall success of the mission.

Mission teams may include university, industry, government, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC) and international partners as desired by the PI.