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Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer
Summary
Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer (GEMS or SMEX-13) mission was a NASA space observatory mission. The main scientific goal of GEMS was to be the first mission to systematically measure the polarization of X-ray sources. GEMS would have provided data to help scientists study the shape of spacetime that has been distorted by a spinning black hole's gravity and the structure and effects of the magnetic fields around neutron stars. It was cancelled by NASA in June 2012 for potential cost overruns due to delays in developing the technology and never moved into the development phase.
GEMS was managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The project was an astrophysics program reporting to NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in Washington, D.C.
Cancelled missions can be reinstated - for example, NuSTAR was cancelled in 2006, but reinstated a year later and launched in June 2012. However, NuSTAR was not cancelled due to project overruns, but rather due to changes in the overall NASA budget, so the circumstances for cancellation were very different. Small missions of the Explorer program offer much flexibility and launch opportunities, and the lessons learned can be applied to the same missions goals, but on a different mission (compare, for instance, Vanguard 1 to Explorer 1). Several years later two new X-ray polarimetry missions won a NASA award to develop X-ray polarimetry missions. NASA's IXPE X-ray polarimetry telescope was launched in 2021; its X-ray observational capabilities and mission objectives are very similar to those (proposed) of the GEMS.
The spacecraft would have been launched in July 2014 on a nine-month mission with a possible 15-month extension for a guest observer phase; but the mission was terminated at the Confirmation Review stage on 10 May 2012 due to expected cost overruns.
The GEMS X-ray telescope was designed to indirectly measure the regions of distorted space around spinning black holes through a measurement of the polarization of X-rays emitted.
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