Technical Readiness

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SIM Technology is Complete:

• Ten-year technology program, including eight NASA HQ specified technology gates, are all complete, satisfying all NASA HQ technology requirements for SIM Implementation Phase (Phase C/D) entry.
• Technology completion/readiness confirmed by multiple external independent reviews.
• For a list of technology milestones completed, click here.

Recently Completed Milestone(s) and Events:

• SIM Science Team Meeting, Washington, D.C., Nov. 19-20, 2008
• SIM Special Session, Winter AAS Meeting, January 9, 2008

Name Affiliation Presentation S.R. Kulkarni Caltech SIM: A Stellar Mission Mike Shao and Jim Marr JPL Technology Program Successes Enable a Lower Cost SIM Chas Beichman MSC/Caltech/JPL Looking for Planets with SIM Todd Henry Georgia State University SIM 'Lites' Stellar Aces Ron Allen STsI Taking the Measure of the Universe: Space Interferometry Mission

• SIM Technical Advisory Committee March 13, 2007

SIM Science is Compelling and Uncompromised:

• SIM represents an entirely new measurement capability in astronomy and a revolution in astrometry that will exceed all previous measurements by a factor of 100-1,000. For faint stars, SIM's capability will exceed that of upcoming missions such as Gaia by a factor of 25-75 or more.
• SIM science program endorsed by two NRC Decadal committees (Bahcall-1991; McKee/Taylor 2001). Reaffirmed by CAA in 2002 and praised for its dual capability in astrophysics and planet finding. Astrometric performance exceeds, by more than a factor of 2, the objectives established by the NRC/CAA.
• SIM Science Team & Key Projects selected by peer-review in 2000. These remain relevant today can only be accomplished by SIM-PlanetQuest.
• Half of SIM observing time remains to be allocated via future solicitation/competition.
• Importance in definitively measuring planet masses & orbits is not diminished by advances elsewhere. Modeling and inference are not substitutes for actually measuring the most fundamental property of any astronomical body: its mass.
• SIM has the capability to detect large numbers of rocky planets around nearby stars.
• In a survey of the best 120 candidate stars for hosting such planets in the 'habitable zone,' SIM would have the sensitivity to find planets smaller than Earth around six stars, planets smaller than two Earth masses around 24 stars, and planets smaller than ~ three Earth masses around every star in the survey group.
• Kepler and SIM complement one another.
• SIM studies nearby exoplanetary systems, while Kepler studies a large sample of distant stars to obtain a statistical sample of exoplanetary systems that are too distant for follow-up characterization.
• GAIA and SIM complement one another.
• SIM excels at studying bright and faint sources to high accuracy, while GAIA will obtain astrometric measurements of a large number of relatively bright stars.