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The Suess-Urey (S-U) mission has been proposed as a NASA Discovery mission to return samples of matter from the Sun to the Earth for isotopic and chemical analyses in terrestrial laboratories to provide a major improvement in our knowledge of the average chemical and isotopic composition of the solar system. The S-U spacecraft and sample return capsule will be placed in a halo orbit around the L1 Sun-Earth libration point for two years to collect solar wind ions which implant into large passive collectors made of ultra-pure materials. Constant Spacecraft-Sun-Earth geometries enable simple spin stabilized attitude control, simple passive thermal control, and a fixed medium gain antenna. Low data requirements and the safety of a Sun-pointed spinner, result in extremely low mission operations costs.

The STARDUST Discovery mission will collect samples of cometary coma and interstellar dust and return them to Earth. Five years after launch in February 1999, coma dust in the 1- to 100-micrometers size range will be captured by impact into ultra-low-density silica aerogel during a 6 kms-1 flyby of Comet Wild 2. The returned samples will be investigated at laboratories where the most critical information on these primitive materials is retained. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory will provide project management with Lockheed Martin Astronauts as the spacecraft industrial partner. STARDUST management will aggressively and innovatively achieve cost control through the use of Total Quality Management principles, the chief of which will be organization in a Project Engineering and Integration Team that "flattens" the traditional hierarchical structure by including all project elements from the beginning, in a concurrent engineering framework focusing on evolving Integrated Mission Capability.

Denver, CO, USA 80201 The astrodynamics of Mars mission launch opportunities set irreducible physical limits on transportation energetics, but many optional approaches are possible depending on flight times and use of Venus flyby gravity assists. Aerocapture and nuclear rocket propulsion technologies have large potential savings to the mission, but require careful strategies for implementation. Supporting human life while maintaining high performance under long-term isolation and the confining conditions of spaceborne and planetary surface environments will set important minimum limits on spacecraft size, configuration, mass, and power. Long-term missions will undoubtedly require serious engineering consideration of the special requirements for providing artificial gravity. Human performance and leisure activity planning will necessitate highly automated spacecraft operation during cruise modes. Autonomous performance will be particularly necessary during aerocapture maneuvers and planetary entry phases. Minimizing spacesuit weight for exploration in a Mars-gravity environment is a driving technology that previous missions in space and to the moon have not required. Earth-to-orbit transportation will require heavy lift launch vehicles as part of the Mars mission fleet.