At the end of the annual Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) meeting in November, the VEXAG Chair transitioned to Darby Dyar, Mount Holyoke College. Noam Izenberg, APL , became the Deputy VEXAG Chair. Thanks to Bob Grimm, Southwest Research Institute, and Marty Gilmore, Wesleyan University, for their service to the Venus science community.

Key 2019 VEXAG Activities will be completing updates of the key VEXAG Venus Exploration Documents (Goals, Objectives and Investigations (GOI) ; Roadmap; and Technology Plan) and conducting a Venus Flagship Mission Study. These are in anticipation of the next Planetary Science Decadal Survey. Current drafts of the key documents are posted on the VEXAG Web-Site at: https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/. Community comments will be solicited at a Venus Town Hall meeting at LPSC on Wednesday, March 20, 2019.

Another key 2019 VEXAG Activity will be soliciting White Papers as part of the pre-decadal process as described on the VEXAG web-page at: https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/Venus-Decadal-Papers-12-18.pdf. The next activity here will be a VEXAG Pre-Decadal Community Review, Sunday, March 17, 2019 at 1:00-5:00 PM, at LPSC.

VEXAG activities at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) In March will be a  VEXAG Pre-Decadal Community Review,  Sunday, March 17, 2019 at 12:00 to 5:00 PM in the Shenandoah Room. A special oral session, “Venus, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Second Planet” will be held on Wednesday, March 20, 2019, starting at 8:30 AM. The annual Venus Town Hall meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 20, 2019 at 12:00:00 PM  1:15:00 PM in the  Waterway 5 Room. A Venus Student Mixer will be held on Wednesday, March 20, 2019 after the oral presentations and before the poster session.

The annual VEXAG Meeting will be held during the week of November 4-8, 2019 at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), University of Colorado, Boulder.