As in prior years, proposals to this program will be taken by a two-step process in which the Notice of Intent is replaced by a required Step-1 proposal submitted by an organization Authorized Organizational Representative. However, this year no PDF upload is required for the Step-1 proposal. Step-1 proposers merely must fill in the Proposal Summary text box on the NSPIRES cover pages. Only proposers who submit a Step-1 proposal are eligible to submit a Step-2 (full) proposal.

In order to be considered, data analysis proposals must use data that are in the public domain 30 days before the CDAPS Step-2 proposal due date, and they must make clear to the peer reviewers that the data are publicly available. Proposals that do not comply with this rule may be declared noncompliant and declined without evaluation. It is understood, however, that once the grant is awarded, succeeding years of work may address data that have subsequently come into the archive. Proposers selected as Participating Scientists will have access to data prior to its release to the public domain but the DAP portion of their proposal (which may be funded separately) should still conform to the 30 day rule.

Proposals should be focused on the Saturn system and make significant use of (or greatly enhance the use of) data returned by Cassini instruments. Additionally, data from the Cassini Jupiter flyby in 2000 is eligible. Proposals to work with Cassini data and also use ground-based or other data are acceptable, provided that the success of the proposal, as written, is dependent upon the Cassini data. If this is not the case, the proposal should be submitted to another ROSES element, as appropriate; see Appendix C of this ROSES NRA .

Proposals should describe a unique science investigation for which proposers are not currently funded.

Proposals to CDAPS must include a science investigation. Proposals to produce a higher order data product that enhances the science return from one or more missions, but does not include a science investigation, should be submitted to the Planetary Data Archiving, Restoration, and Tools (PDART) Program, C.7.

Investigations that incorporate theory, modeling, laboratory studies, correlative analyses, and/or other research that would greatly increase the use of, or significantly facilitate the interpretation of, data from the mission are also eligible for CDAPS.