Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
The Origins Billions Star Survey (OBSS) is a space astrometry mission that was funded byNASA in 2004 to perform an eight-month concept study. Although the OBSS mission was notselected for further development beyond the concept study phase, OBSS spawned asmaller-scale mission, called the Joint Milli-Arcsecond Pathfinder Survey (JMAPS), whichis currently funded for launch in early 2014. JMAPS is a small, space-based, all-skyvisible wavelength astrometric and photometric survey mission for 0th through 14th magnitudestars. The primary objective of the JMAPS mission is the generation of an astrometric starcatalogue with better than 1 milliarcsecond positional accuracy and photometry to the 1%accuracy level, or better, at 1st to 12th magnitude.