Main Workshop Technical Sessions:

Inner Solar System Exploration -- Monday, June 13, 1:30pm:

The Inner Solar System Exploration Session will focus on past, present, and future exploration of Venus, Earth, and Mars. Topics may include missions, science, technology, and systems dealing with the in-situ exploration of the rocky planets, such as landers or entry probes. Contributions to this session can address aspects such as atmospheric science and environment characterization, robotic and human EDL, and sample return.

Demonstration and Flight Testing -- Tuesday, June 12, 8:30am:

Ground demonstration and flight testing in relevant environments are critical to the development of technologies for planetary probe missions. Specific topics sought include testing that demonstrates technology capability in aerodynamic performance; aerothermodynamic survivability; material response; propulsion; and guidance, navigation, and control. Other desired topics include demonstrations of manufacturing and assembly of probe technologies, novel testing techniques, new instrumentation approaches, and new ground test capabilities. Emphasis should be placed on technologies and flight systems that enable current and future missions and mission concepts.

Aerosciences and Entry Technology -- Tuesday, June 12, 1:30pm:

Probe missions to a planetary body with an atmosphere involve aerodynamically decelerating the probe using entry technologies to successfully complete the entry phase and to prepare for descent and landing. For example, heatshields must be designed to withstand severe heating environments as the vehicle is decelerated via hypersonic aerobraking or entry through the atmosphere. This session will cover current engineering techniques, physics, and technologies that enhance and enable atmospheric aerobraking or entry missions, such as: entry vehicle and thermal protection system design; methods for assessing aerothermal environments, thermal and structural response, and aerodynamic performance; specific implementation concepts such as supersonic retropropulsion, inflatable/deployable heatshields, and systems/methods that improve entry control/guidance. Cross-cutting/multidisciplinary topics related to this theme are also encouraged.

Descent and Landing Technology -- Wednesday, June 13, 8:30am:

The objective of various technologies used during descent and landing phases of EDL are to dissipate the kinetic energy of a spacecraft that remains from the entry phase of flight, while also directing the vehicle to its target landing conditions and making final preparations for landing. This session is focused on the engineering and technology of these EDL phases and will cover topic areas that include, but are not limited to, aerodynamic decelerators, supersonic retropropulsion, GN&C strategies, navigation sensors, terrain relative sensing and characterization, autonomous targeting, propulsion and touchdown systems, architecture transitions, and instrumentation.

Instrumentation and Experiments -- Wednesday, June 13, 11:15am:

In-situ planetary science measurements are fundamental to our understanding of the solar system. This session covers the development and implementation of past, present and future science and engineering instrumentation for probes exploring planets, moons and other small bodies. Engineering and science are brought together in this session to discuss the fundamental goals, requirements and challenges of instruments and experiments, understand the practical limitations of data collection from in situ or remote sensing techniques and share lessons learned from instrument development or implementation activities.

Modeling, Simulation, and Validation -- Thursday, June 14, 8:30am:

This session will focus on modeling and simulation advancements for planetary probes including: entry, descent and landing (EDL), computational fluid dynamics (CFD), guidance, navigation and control (GNC), materials and thermal protection systems (TPS) modeling, decelerator systems, surface operations, integrated/optimized capabilities, and related disciplines. Current work in testing and demonstration techniques, model validation, and diagnostics, are also a major component of this session. Work that is advancing the state-of-the-art of the current capabilities or technologies, or comparing or leveraging both testing and computational models including data-driven modeling, is especially relevant.

Lunar and Small Body Exploration -- Thursday, June 14, 1:30pm:

Lunar and small body exploration has the potential to provide insight into our own planet and the evolution of our solar system. This session will focus on current and future missions, descent and landing architectures, and science and instrumentation related to this mission class.

Lunar exploration has had a regain of interest in the recent years both from agencies and private businesses. It is expected to continue and even increase in the coming years. Specific aspects of enabling descent and landing technologies in support of future missions and architectures (including polar exploration, rover deployment, human surface activity preparation and exploration) shall be discussed. In addition, discussions on scientific data return, commercial applications and enablers as well as international collaboration and framework are also welcome to the session.

Small body exploration is a growing mission class that has unique scientific potential. Small airless bodies are being targeted for learning about the solar system's origin, evolutionary processes that led to the formation of the planets, as well as the search of primitive classes of organics that can shed light on the origin of life. The large number of future mission concepts, planned missions, and missions under way to their respective targets emphasize the continued great interest in airless bodies and promise to unveil many mysteries.

Small and CubeSat Probes -- Thursday, June 14, 4:15pm:

This session invites abstracts on mission concepts, scientific instruments and new technologies for small spacecraft or CubeSat probes. Small probes can augment a primary spacecraft's science mission. They may also stand alone as their own mission by reducing life-cycle costs or by increasing spacecraft quantity. They can perform remote sensing and/or in-situ measurements, be used as landing platforms for technological demonstrations.
Outer Solar System Exploration -- Friday, June 15, 8:30am:

The outer solar system comprises the gas and ice giant planets and a multitude of icy worlds. The giant planets represent time capsules from the epoch of solar system formation. Within the atmospheres and interiors of the giant planets, fingerprints of the chemical and physical conditions existing at the time and location at which each planet formed and the processes by which the giant planets and the solar system formed can be found. In situ measurements of giant planet atmospheric composition and processes help constrain models of solar system formation and evolution, the origin and evolution of atmospheres, and the large-scale structure of the solar system including the Earth.

Icy worlds in the outer solar system include the satellites of the giant planets, comets, asteroids, KBOs, and the Pluto system. The icy worlds represent laboratories for understanding surface geochemistries, and geophysical and atmospheric chemistries and processes including atmospheric thermal and energy structure and dynamics, as well as having compositions that help constrain models of solar system formation and evolution. The prospect of subsurface oceans on a number of the icy worlds as potentially habitable environments has exciting implications for astrobiology. The in-situ exploration of these ocean worlds such as Europa, Titan, and Enceladus could offer important clues to answer the fundamental question of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe.

The Outer Solar System Exploration session solicits presentations addressing concepts for possible future outer solar system atmospheric and/or surface contact missions (incl. the outer planets, their moons, and other icy worlds), and technologies and instrumentation designed to enable exploration of the extreme environments found in the outer solar system.