Category: Planetary Exploration

Event Format: Conference

Date: 12-14 June 2012

Location: Lunar and Planetary Institute 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, TX 77058, US

Introduction

The NASA Administrator has directed the Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate (AA/SMD) to lead a reformulation of the Mars Exploration Program, working with the Associate Administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Directorate (AA/HEOMD), the Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT), and the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS). In support of this reformulation, NASA will assess near-term mission concepts and longer-term foundations of program-level architectures for future robotic exploration of Mars in sufficient detail for SMD to develop and select high pay-off mission(s) beginning with the 2018 launch opportunity. The resulting missions and architecture will be responsive to the scientific goals articulated by the National Research Council Planetary Decadal Survey (Visions and Voyages, 2012, NRC Press) and to the President's challenge of sending humans to orbit Mars in the decade of the 2030s.

Purpose and Scope

In addition to being responsive to the scientific goals of the Decadal Survey, the reformulation effort will address the primary objectives of the Strategic Knowledge Gaps in the Human Exploration of Mars as well as the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) Goals. It will set the stage for a strategic collaboration between the Science Mission Directorate, the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and the Office of the Chief Technologist, for the next several decades of exploring Mars. One of the key elements in developing this collaboration and the related mission and architecture options is to seek community ideas, concepts and capabilities to address critical challenge areas, focusing on a near-term timeframe spanning 2018 through 2024, and a mid- to longer-term timeframe spanning 2024 to the mid-2030s. To that end, NASA is sponsoring a two-and-a-half-day workshop to actively engage the technical and scientific communities in the early stages of a longer-term process of collaboration that bridges the objectives of the sponsoring NASA organizations. This workshop will be held June 12-14, 2012, at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, which is located in the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) building, 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston TX 77058.

Web Site Address: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/marsconcepts2012/

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