Dear Colleagues:

The fourth and final landing site workshop for the Mars 2020 rover mission will be October 16-18, 2018, at the Hilton Los Angeles North/Glendale in Glendale, CA. The workshop will focus on discussion of the science potential of the three remaining candidate sites under consideration: Columbia Hills, Jezero Crater, and NE Syrtis.

New results related to analyses of the science potential of the sites as well as presentations on potential extended mission targets at each of the final sites are encouraged. We anticipate that the Mars 2020 Project will provide detailed mission scenarios for each site that includes discussion of potential exploration targets, observations, and sampling strategies relative to mission goals and important Mars science described in the 2013-2022 Planetary Science Decadal Survey.

Additional details related to the workshop, such as hotel room block and webcast information, and a call for workshop presentations will be posted at: https://marsnext.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm during the upcoming summer. For those planning to attend in-person and who typically forecast for conference attendance, please put your forecast into your institution’s system for NCTS# 34492-19 before May 18.

Information related to the science objectives of the Mars 2020 mission, engineering constraints, each of the ~30 candidate landing sites considered for the mission, and the outcome of each of the prior three landing site workshops can be viewed at: ttps://marsnext.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm.

A community assessment will be made at the end of the workshop for the final three candidate landing sites and will be factored into subsequent deliberations that will conclude with the Mars 2020 Project recommendation of the landing site to NASA Headquarters.

Please save the dates and we look forward to your participation in the October workshop!

Regards,

John Grant and Matt Golombek
Co-chairs, Mars Landing Site Steering Committee