Landing Sites for Exploration Missions
A EUROPLANET JRA1 workshop and conference, January 17-21 2011, Lorentz Center, Leiden/Noordwijk, The Netherlands
Scientific case and motivation
Europe is currently in the process of defining its activities in solar system exploration through programs of the European Space Agency and the EU. Scientific research is a key-driver in solar system exploration and constitutes the essential foundation for future robotic planetary and lunar missions in the global exploration context. The process by which landing sites are selected for such missions typically involves collaboration between people with diverse expertise and background, both science and engineering. The European planetary science community has had limited exposure to the process of landing site selection. As part of Europlanet (EU FP7 Research Infrastructure Program), this workshop seeks to foster global collaboration and to empower the planetary community in areas related to landing site selection and terrain characterization for future missions.
Program
The workshop (3.5 days) will consist of lectures, discussion and hands-on interdisciplinary group-sessions, during which we will run simplified simulated landing site selection procedures to explore and test a variety of relevant tools. The workshop is limited to a maximum of 60 participants. The final conference at ESTEC will have a more formal character with key note lectures, presentation of the workshop results, a poster session on Thursday, and a panel discussion.
The program of the workshop and conference, including the pdf's of presentations.
Scenarios
During the hands-on, interdisciplinary group-sessions each group will take on a different scenario. These scenarios are based on upcoming missions from both ESA and the private sector. The goal of these sessions is both to test a variety of relevant tools as they are deployed on this website, and to come up with a list of requirements to create a community around the field of landing-site characterization and selection.
The scenario discussion template.
Results
The results of the workshop, including a list where these have been sent to, are available at the workshop result page.