Agencies participating in the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) are continuing their efforts to raise awareness of the challenges and opportunities of implementing exploration missions as described in the Global Exploration Roadmap (GER) and seek innovative solutions from the broader community. Accordingly, a series of engagement activities are planned in the US, Europe and Japan in 2014. One of the topics to be covered will be opportunities resulting from the GER mission themes e.g. knowledge gain. Challenges e.g. keeping the crew healthy and productive during exploration missions, reducing the costs of space systems and missions, and finding new ways to engage the public in space exploration will also be addressed. One focus of the discussions will be the need for research and development of advanced technologies to enable future human missions to the surface of Mars.
The first of these activities is a workshop organized by NASA on April 10-11, 2014. The NASA Community Workshop on the Global Exploration Roadmap will provide an opportunity for focused community discussion related to advancing the definition of the 3 near-term mission themes identified in the ISECG Mission Scenario. Invited presentations from the broader stakeholder community, panel discussions, and audience Question & Answer sessions are planned in order to facilitate discussion of innovative ideas from the community. You may participate in the workshop in person or virtually via Adobe Connect. For more information and to register for the workshop, please visit http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/about/isecg/ger-workshop/ .
The second stakeholder engagement opportunity will take place on October 29-31, 2014, at the Space Exploration International Conference hosted at the International Space University (ISU) in Strasbourg, France. Participants to this conference will be invited to present their international space exploration activities, debate the technical, scientific and programmatic challenges associated to space exploration, and review the implications of the GER during special plenary sessions and roundtables. For more information about the conference, the submission of abstracts, registration and access to the ISU site, please visit http://space-explo2014.com/ .
Information on the event in Japan will be announced soon.