On 30 September 2014, during the ISECG meeting at Senior Agency Management level, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) handed over the ISECG Chairmanship to the European Space Agency (ESA).
ESA noted the importance of ISECG for agencies´ strategic planning and emphasised two key points:
- It is essential for the space exploration community to continue to converge on the path forward from the International Space Station´s foundation with support on the governmental/political level.
- It is important for ISECG to continue to prepare for cooperation and to aid agencies in identifying concrete cooperation opportunities, and to foster global engagement in space exploration.
The Senior Agency Managers took note of the progress and the way forward for the road-mapping process as well as some of the key elements for the global science engagement presented at the meeting, such as the interaction with the scientific communities. Hereby, the focus will be on science drivers for exploration destinations and science opportunities in the ISECG Global Exploration Roadmap (GER) mission scenario.
Notable achievements during the CSA chairmanship of ISECG included: an update of the GER; publication of the “Benefits Stemming from Space Exploration” document and CSA representation of the work of the ISECG agencies at the International Space Exploration Forum on ministerial level in January 2014.