2020 MEPAG Goals Document Draft is now Available for Community Comments

The Mars Exploration Program Aanalysis Group (MEPAG) Goals Committee welcomes comments from the community on the newly updated MEPAG Goals Document. The MEPAG Goals document is an important living document that is intended to capture and rank the ever-evolving highest priority science questions at Mars (Goals I-III), as well as the engineering needs to start to send Humans to Mars (Goal IV). Its value comes in its ability to represent the consensus of the Mars community and to remain current. This effort is part of the MEPAG preparations for the next Planetary Science Decadal Survey, and updates have been made to all four Goals (Life, Climate, Geology, and Preparation for Human Exploration), including additions and revisions within content, organization (at the Objective through Investigation levels), and prioritization.

The 2020 MEPAG Goals Document revisions DRAFT (and Summary Matrix) are available at the MEPAG Reports site, along with the 2018 MEPAG Goals Document. Community comments about the 2020 MEPAG Goals Document draft should be submitted via this google form, through end-of-day Friday, February 14. Please break your input into comments on the particular goal or goals in which you wish to see changes, and as appropriate include reference to the specific section or line number. Comments are also welcomed on the cross-cutting themes chapter.

Based on these comments, the MEPAG Goals Committee will finish revising the Goals Document, and aims to complete the final and official 2020 MEPAG Goals Document before MEPAG Meeting 38, ideally at Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) 2020.