Landing Sites for Exploration Missions

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 aims to foster global collaboration and to empower the planetary community in areas related to landing site selection and terrain characterization for future missions.

The workshop (4 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 will be followed by a conference at ESTEC (European Space Agency (Noordwijk), with keynote lectures, presentation of the workshop results, posters and a panel discussion.

To foster interdisciplinary networking and collaboration we solicit participation of people from a variety of disciplines, both scientists and engineers from junior to senior level are invited.

We encourage participants to suggest topics for discussion, mission scenarios for evaluation, and tools to be used and tested during the workshop. For more information see PlanetaryGIS.