WASHINGTON, Feb. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — NASA will kick off the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium – an element of the agency’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative – at a workshop hosted by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, on Friday, Feb. 28.

The consortium will team experts from academia, industry and government to shape the technologies and systems needed to explore the surface of the Moon in new ways. Universities and businesses will contribute to the Artemis program via the consortium and collaborate with NASA to make recommendations for a cohesive, executable strategy for developing and deploying technologies required for successful lunar surface exploration.

Media representatives interested in attending the event should contact Michael Buckley of APL Public Affairs at 240-228-7536 or michael.buckley@jhuapl.edu by 5 p.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 27. NASA and APL experts will be made available for interview opportunities upon request. The event will also be livestreamed on APL’s YouTube and Facebook pages.

The workshop opens with an address by NASA Associate Administrator Steve Jurczyk at 9:15 a.m. The day continues with discussions among NASA leaders and the university, laboratory and commercial space communities on the path ahead for technologies for long-term exploration of the Moon.

APL operates the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium in collaboration with NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate under the Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative. The initiative complements NASA science and technology payloads being developed to fly aboard commercial lunar landers.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, continues to advance the agency’s lunar exploration efforts. Goddard manages the longest running lunar mission – the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Working with American companies, Goddard is developing payloads and instruments for the lunar surface. Goddard’s Chief Technologist plans to attend the kickoff consortium meeting.

The Artemis program is the next step in human exploration. It is a part of NASA’s broader Moon to Mars exploration approach, in which we will quickly and sustainable explore the Moon and use what we learn there to enable humanity’s next giant leap, sending astronauts to Mars.

For information on the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium and kickoff meeting, visit:

http://lsic.jhuapl.edu/

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SOURCE NASA