First Announcement
Meeting Location and Dates
The Joint Workshop on Induced Special Regions will be held at the Universities Space Research Association’s Headquarters at 7178 Columbia Gateway Dr., Columbia, Maryland, November 29–December 1, 2017.
A block of rooms have been reserved at Courtyard Columbia, located at 8910 Stanford Boulevard, Columbia, MD 21045-5805. Please contact Pauline Burgess before making reservations.
NCTS number: 32197-18
Purpose and Scope
The outcome of this invitation-only workshop is to inform ongoing and future missions as to where there might be Special Regions, if a spacecraft can inadvertently create a Special Region, and what buffer zone should be considered in approaching a Special Region. Thorough discussions will be focused on three areas of Special Regions: capabilities of Earth organisms, natural conditions on Mars, and how spacecraft could alter condition on Mars.
The organizers suggest the following reading materials in preparation of this workshop:
- A New Analysis of Mars 'Special Regions': Findings of the Second MEPAG Special Regions Science Analysis Group (SR-SAG2), Astrobiology, Volume 14, Number 11, 2014
- The Potential for the Off-Nominal Landing of an RTG-Powered Spacecraft on Mars to Induce an Artificial Special Region, Submitted to Astrobiology
- Reports from workshops on planetary protection for human missions that address transport questions