Lunar and Planetary Institute





Analogue Sites for Mars Missions:  MSL and Beyond

Sponsored by
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Lunar and Planetary Institute

Scientific Organizing Committee
Mary Voytek, NASA Headquarters
Michael Meyer, NASA Headquarters
Victoria Hipkin, Canadian
Space Agency

Richard Leveille, Canadian
Space Agency

Shawn Domagal-Goldman,
NASA Headquarters


Final Announcement — February 2011

Meeting Overview

Analogue Sites for Mars Missions: MSL and Beyond will be held in the Cochran’s Crossing room at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center, 1601 Lake Robbins Drive, The Woodlands, Texas. The meeting will be held on March 5–6, 2011, immediately prior to the start of the 42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

Registration and abstract submission for this meeting are now closed. The workshop is full, and we are unable to accommodate any additional attendees.

The workshop will begin at 9:00 a.m. On Saturday morning we will have presentations on Mars missions and landing sites. On Saturday afternoon, we will discuss analogue missions and sites.

On Saturday evening we will have a poster session and reception. Participants are encouraged to bring a poster with them to display in the poster area. Sunday will be devoted to breakout sessions, and the synthesis of information from those sessions. Discussions at the workshop will be based on abstracts, lightning talks, invited review talks, and posters.

If you wish to make a short, one-slide “lightning talk” presentation about your abstract, you can either bring it on a USB drive or e-mail it to Shawn Domagal-Goldman.

For more detailed information, view the agenda.

Click here to view the contributed abstracts.

Purpose and Scope

The goal of the workshop is to develop an inventory of analogue sites that have value to NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the Mars 2018 missions, and Mars analogue missions by the Canadian Space Agency and other space agencies. There will be a strong focus on outstanding science questions and Mars habitability. A secondary goal is to foster a closer relationship between the analogue science and planetary mission communities. The results from this workshop may be used as input from the community to help guide future support to analogue sites by participating funding agencies.

The workshop will include invited presentations on missions, landing sites, and analogue missions. Abstracts on analogue sites will be solicited from participants using an adapted MSL landing site template. Breakout sessions will allow groups to assess proposed analogue sites against the four known MSL target landing sites and the science objectives of future missions. Particular attention will be given to establishing a rubric to assess the relative merit of different sites.This rubric will be applied to analogues for currently planned missions, and will be designed so that it can also be applied to future analogues for as-yet-undetermined landing sites.

An overview of the MSL mission and landing sites can be found at http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/.

For Mars 2018 missions and beyond, please see reports at http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports/index.html; in particular, see http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports/2R-iSAG_final.pdf and http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports/MRR-SAG_Full_Report_v64b.pdf.

Registration

There will be no registration fee for the meeting, but participation will be by invitation only, based on submitted abstracts and other expressions of interest sent to one of the scientific organizers (see contact information below).

Logistics

For information about the meeting venue, accommodations, map and directions, etc., please refer to the
42nd LPSC website.

Contact Information

For information about the scientific content of the meeting, contact:

Mary Voytek
NASA Headquarters
E-mail:  [email protected]

Shawn Domagal-Goldman
NASA Headquarters
E-mail: [email protected]

Victoria Hipkin
Canadian Space Agency
E-mail: [email protected]

For information about logistics, contact:

Renée Dotson
USRA/Lunar and Planetary Institute
Phone:  281-486-2188
E-mail:  [email protected]

Schedule

Analogue Sites for Mars Missions: MSL and Beyond March 5–6, 2011