LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE: TESTING NEW CONCEPTS

The Origins Billions Star Survey (OBSS) is a space astrometry mission that was funded by NASA in 2004 to perform an eight-month concept study. Although the OBSS mission was not selected for further development beyond the concept study phase, OBSS spawned a smaller-scale mission, called the Joint Milli-Arcsecond Pathfinder Survey (JMAPS), which is currently funded for launch in early 2014. JMAPS is a small, space-based, all-sky visible wavelength astrometric and photometric survey mission for 0(th) through 14(th) magnitude stars. The primary objective of the JMAPS mission is the generation of an astrometric star catalogue with better than 1 milliarcsecond positional accuracy and photometry to the 1% accuracy level, or better, at 1(st) to 12(th) magnitude.