PLANETARY EXPLORATION NEWSLETTER Volume 1, Number 25 (October 7, 2007) PEN Website: http://planetarynews.org Editor: Nic Richmond Co-Editors: Mark V. Sykes, Matt Balme Email: pen_editor at psi.edu o-------------------------TABLE OF CONTENTS---------------------------o 1. New Lunar and Planetary Institute Website for the Lunar Science and Exploration Community 2. VEXAG News - VEXAG Meeting #4 and The Venus Exploration Goals, Objectives, Investigations, and Priorities Document 3. Final Announcement: Second Landing Site Workshop for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory 4. Planetary Meeting Calendar Additions o---------------------------------------------------------------------o 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 NEW LUNAR AND PLANETARY INSTITUTE WEBSITE FOR THE LUNAR SCIENCE AND EXPLORATION COMMUNITY After a 35-year hiatus, NASA is returning humans to the Moon. To support that activity, the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) has developed a new web-based information portal for the lunar science and exploration community: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar This new website provides access to everything "lunar" from the earliest Apollo-era documents to the most recent lunar research reports. Information is organized under specific categories: (1) Lunar Mission Summaries; (2) Apollo-Era Documents; (3) Lunar Samples; (4) Lunar Images; (5) Lunar Surface; (6) Lunar Meteorites; (7) Exploration Strategies; (8) Constellation Hardware; (9) Landing Site Studies; (10) Computational Tools; (11) Educational Products. Data can also be accessed through a new LPI Lunar Search Engine, which provides links to both USRA-LPI documents and information at other lunar-information sites. This is a living web-based system. As the exploration initiative grows, the content of this portal will expand appropriately, providing a one-stop source of lunar information. Highlights of the website include a new Lunar Orbiter Photo Gallery, with new views of over 2600 Lunar Orbiter images, as well as lunar-related computational tools, the first of which allows users to calculate the sizes of craters produced on the lunar surface as a function of impact parameters. 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 VEXAG NEWS - VEXAG MEETING #4 AND THE VENUS EXPLORATION GOALS, OBJECTIVES, INVESTIGATIONS, AND PRIORITIES DOCUMENT The Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) will be holding its 4th meeting on Sunday afternoon and Manday, November 4th and 5yth, 2007 at the Greenbelt Marriot Hotel, Greenbelt, Maryland. This meeting will be held in conjunction with NASA's Workshop on Planetary Atmospheres and the Outer Planet Analysis Group (OPAG) meetings, which will be at the Greenbelt Marriot Hotel later in that first full week of November. A preliminary agenda is posted on the VEXAG web-site: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/ The first version of VEXAG's The Venus Exploration Goals, Objectives, Investigations, and Priorities Document is now posted at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/reports.html. This is based on the inputs provided by the scientific community during VEXAG meetings 1, 2 and 3 and via email to the VEXAG Steering Group. Given the recent successes of the European Venus Express orbital mission (which in its first 500 days has thus far returned over 1 terabit of data encompassing the planet's surface, atmosphere, and surrounding space environments), this report documents the needs and requirements for the "Next Steps" in Venus exploration, emphasizing in particular the need for in-situ analysis of Venus's atmosphere and surface. A variety of mission architectures - including balloons, landers, and near-surface aerobotic rovers - are outlined. 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3 FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT: SECOND LANDING SITE WORKSHOP FOR THE 2009 MARS SCIENCE LABORATORY The program and agenda for the second landing site workshop for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is now available online and can be viewed at: http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/ and http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/msl The workshop will be held at the Courtyard Marriott in Old Town Pasadena, CA, on October 23-25, 2007. The format will include oral presentations and general discussion of the proposed landing sites. The primary goal of the second workshop will be to evaluate the sites that emerged from the first workshop as well as any new sites being proposed. Revision of the MSL landing site selection schedule requires that the list of sites under consideration be narrowed to five at the end of the second workshop. These sites will then be considered in more detail by the MSL Project, Mars Program, and the Science Community with the expectation that additional orbital data will be obtained. An MSL science and engineering criteria chart is posted at the above referenced websites and lists the landing site attributes that will be discussed and used to help distinguish between sites at the workshop. 4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4 PLANETARY MEETING CALENDAR ADDITIONS Posted at http://planetarynews.org/meetings.html November 14-15, 2007 NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate Technology Exchange Conference http://shrinkurls.com/?r=s Galveston, TX January 14-16, 2008 The First Meeting of the International Primitive Boday Exploration Working Group (IPEWG) Contact: Hajime Yano (yano@isas.jaxa.jp) Okinawa, Japan *********************************************************************** * * The Planetary Exploration Newsletter is issued approximately weekly. * Current and back issues are available at * * http://planetarynews.org * * To subscribe, go to http://planetarynews.org/pen_subscribe.html * * To unsubscribe, go to http://planetarynews.org/pen_unsubscribe.html * * Please send all replies and submissions to pen_editor at psi.edu. * Announcements and other messages should be brief with links to URLs * for extended information, including detailed descriptions for job * announcements. 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