Dear Colleagues,

We regret to inform you that LPSC 51 will be cancelled due to concerns about COVID-19. This difficult decision has been made after a careful assessment of the risks as determined by the CDC and WHO; consultation with NASA PSD leadership; and consideration of community feedback. We are fully committed to ensuring that our conference attendees and staff remain safe and well.

Please note the following additional information:

• We will reimburse all registration fees based on the full payment amount. No processing fees will be withheld, and processing fees for those who submitted a registration cancellation through March 2, 2020 will be refunded. We only have a small staff to manage refunds to over 1,600 registrants, so we ask for your patience.
• We will not be able to assist with reimbursement of other travel costs, but the timing of the cancellation should be sufficiently early for attendees to cancel hotel reservations and for the possibility of waived change fees by many airlines.
• We plan to broadcast some of the key NASA and NRC peripheral meetings over the next few weeks; please stay tuned to the LPI and LPSC websites and social media (Twitter: @LPItoday and Facebook: @LunarandPlanetaryInstitute) for more information about scheduling.
• Some of you have asked if we can reschedule the conference; however, given its size there is no way to do this without conflicting with other scheduled meetings or workshops. In addition, we plan to wait for the situation with COVID-19 to settle down before we can consider future venue negotiations.
• We do not see any feasible way at this time to broadcast individual talks or posters; LPSC is simply too large, and we do not have the staff to support these types of activities.
• If you are a student receiving an LPI stipend, we will contact you separately with further instructions.
• If you have any further questions, please email us at [email protected]. We will respond as soon as we are able, but please be patient.

We would like to acknowledge the considerable efforts of the USRA/LPI meetings staff, who have worked for almost a year to produce this conference. We also wish to thank the LPSC Program Committee and its Chair Walter Kiefer, who put together an outstanding program.

Thank you all for your support, and we look forward to seeing you all at LPSC 2021.

Louise Prockter (USRA/LPI) and Eileen Stansbery (JSC/ARES)
LPSC Conference Co-Chairs