2020 SBG Community Workshop Update

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we have cancelled the in-person SBG Community Workshop that was planned for May 26-29. Instead, we will hold a program of virtual meetings during the spring. We will also be developing an online training workshop for early career scientists and others interested in new tools for working with VSWIR and TIR data: stay tuned for announcements on that.

To prepare for the Community Workshop, the Surface Biology and Geology Study Team will hold three webinar virtual town halls over Spring and early summer 2020 to keep the community informed about progress towards an architecture that includes a hyperspectral VSWIR and multispectral TIR observing strategy following NASA 2017 Decadal Survey recommendations.  The first two meetings will be webex briefings followed by a virtual town hall with full video.

 

The first webinar will occur on March 26 at 1-2 pm EDT and will present the status of SBG’s science traceability to questions and priorities, provide brief updates on the research and applications status and will present the process for selecting final architectures for recommendation to NASA HQ planned for July.

 

In the second webinar, on May 27 at 1-3 pm EDT, the SBG team will present the architecture status and the team’s planned recommendation to HQ. There will be capability for synchronous or written comments on the architectures to inform HQ’s programmatic review.  The community will have an opportunity to flag issues for further investigation as the HQ-selected architecture is translated into a point design in the last phase of the study.  The team will also describe what aspects of the eventual mission are determined by the architecture, and which ones will be specifically defined during the early phases of mission development.

 

A third webinar, July 15 at 12 to 2pm EDT,  will begin with a review of the science and applications metrics used to score architectures to be followed by a presentation of the recommended options, a preferred option and two high-value alternates.  The SBG team will review the process for community feedback, and NASA HQ staff will talk about their next steps, leading to a decision.

 

Please follow our email, twitter and web presence as these dates could change with the ongoing situation.  As each webinar approaches, we will post on the SBG website (sbg.jpl.nasa.gov) and twitter (@nasa_sbg), send out agendas, dial-in information, and instructions as to how to submit questions and comments prior to and during the events.  We appreciate the community’s patience and engagement as we re-boot our own engagement strategy and wish everyone to be safe during this time!