A shared view of future space exploration is now being finalised following almost a year's work by the Global Exploration Strategy (GES) team formed by the world's space agencies.
The vision is outlined in a document Global Exploration Strategy: A framework for coordination, drawn up by the GES team and now with the agencies for a final evaluation and review.
Created in April 2006 following a NASA-hosted conference in Washington DC, the team has met through teleconferences and workshops to draw up a long-term perspective for space exploration, focusing on robotic and human missions to the Moon, Mars and near-Earth asteroids.
NASA has been seeking ways of incorporating other agencies into its effort to create an international lunar outpost at Shackleton crater at the Moon's south pole. With the International Space Station (ISS) likely to be retired by 2020, the ISS's partners and other ambitious agencies see the Moon base as a next step.
Fourteen agencies received the document at a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)-hosted global exploration strategy workshop held in Kyoto this month. They include the European Space Agency, NASA, Russia's Federal Space Agency, the China National Space Administration and the agencies of South Korea and Ukraine.
The Kyoto meeting also agreed on the creation of the International Coordination Mechanism (ICM). This will be a voluntary, non-binding forum where government-assigned space organisations can share plans for space exploration and explore collaboration.
"[We] initiated an important discussion on how to maximise the benefits of solar system exploration missions through the sharing of scientific data. Although some existing standards for data exchange exist, all agreed that progress on this issue could be supported by the [ICM]," says JAXA.
Once the GES team completes its work on the co-ordination framework document it will establish the ICM "in the near term", says JAXA. The team will meet again at the ESA/Italian Space Agency sustainable space exploration workshop to be held in Spineto, Italy from the 29 May to 1 June. JAXA intends to host another global exploration meeting in 2008.
Source: Flight International
