Herschel Preparatory Science Meeting

15 – 17 December

Organizer: Pepe Cernicharo

Herschel is the next cornerstone mission build by the European Space

Agency, ESA.  This space observatory, geared towards far-infrared and

submillimeter observations, is slotted to be launched in 2007.  It will

contain three instruments, PACS, SPIRE, and HIFI which are built by

three consortia of national (European, USA, and Canada) space agencies

and universities.  Hardware development for these instruments is well

under way and the instrument consortia are actively defining their

science programs. Equally important is the preparation of the analysis and

interpretation of the unique data that will become available with this new

observatory. This includes laboratory spectroscopy of relevant molecules,

the calculation and measurement of molecular collisional excitation rates,

the measurement of rates of astrochemically important reactions, the

development of astro-chemical models, the study of the spectral

characteristics of interstellar dust, and the development of radiative

transfer models for astrophysically relevant objects.

A first workshop on this subject was held at the Lorentz Center, October

22-24, 2001. The present workshop is intended to summarize the progress

in the different topics since then and chart the future. The meeting will

consist of plenary sessions discussing these issues as well as more

 informal splinter meetings and discussions.