Keith’s note; last week NASA decided to halt support for MD Planetary Science Division Analysis and Assessment Groups. The following email was shared widely by Benjamin Greenhagen, Ph.D Chair, Lunar Exploration Analysis Group LEAG Community: “It will be harder for us to sustain two-way communication between the community and NASA decision makers without meeting support and travel grants, but we will. LEAG will continue to organize events and invite NASA leadership” Full email below.
NASA PSD Director Louise Prockter recently met with the AG Chairs and notified us that NASA would be ending support for the AGs at the end of April. She asked us to convey the following information to our communities:
“NASA’s Planetary Science Division will no longer be able to formally support the Planetary Science Analysis and Assessment Groups (AGs) after April 2026. A letter to the community, from the Planetary Science Division Director, about this decision and path forward has been published online at: https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-science/resources/psd-director-letter-to-the-community/.”
If you have not yet read Louise’s letter, please do so.
This was a surprising decision. It seemed likely that support for the AGs would be reduced in some manner; however, I did not think support would be eliminated. With all due respect for PSD, I don’t think this was the correct decision. And I don’t believe that this was the only possible decision.
I think that community engagement, analysis, and consensus building are essential to NASA executing our nation’s priorities of advancing lunar science, exploration, and critical technologies. I take it to heart when NASA says we are all the Artemis Generation, and we are going. When something is this important, you focus on what you will do to support and foster it rather than what you can’t do.
- It will be harder for us to sustain two-way communication between the community and NASA decision makers without meeting support and travel grants, but we will. LEAG will continue to organize events and invite NASA leadership. We will work with professional societies, institutions, and other organizations regarding opportunities for in-person community engagement. The first of these will be at LPSC 2026. We will host a 2026 LEAG annual meeting; however, support through NASA’s future competitive community meetings solicitation or another entity may be required to enable an in-person component.
- It will be harder for us to provide agile analysis to NASA on critical topics, but we will. The recent reorganization of LEAG to include standing working groups focused on science, exploration, and technology join the LEAG Commercial Advisory Board in providing a deeper pool of engaged community members ready to respond to community-driven priorities and topics. We will share the products of these analyses with the community and NASA stakeholders. We will also engage with NASA towards facilitating community analyses and assessments through future solicited opportunities.
- It will be harder for us to curate community consensus and maintain a repository of community documents, but we will. We expect that LEAG will need to migrate to a new website and listserv. We will work with our longtime partner LPI on how to best achieve this. We will identify partners for long-term hosting of all original community documents.
- It will be easier for us to engage in activities outside our current NASA-approved terms of reference, and we will. NASA support necessarily restricts activities, and there will be new opportunities to expand LEAG. Potential expansions could include areas of the international community, advocacy, and community support. How do you think LEAG should evolve? We will proceed cautiously, as any expansion of LEAG activities carries a cost and benefit, and careful analysis and discussions are needed as we create and amend our new charter.
NASA support for LEAG has evolved significantly since our founding in 2004. LEAG will take up Louise’s charge to evolve and innovate in this next phase. To make this successful, we will need a high level of community support and engagement. If you know of resources available to help sustain LEAG, please reach out directly or via our anonymous “suggestion box”: https://forms.gle/AAZVocaTKTvDQ6gR7.
Thank you for continuing to support LEAG.
-Ben
Benjamin Greenhagen, Ph.D.
Chair, Lunar Exploration Analysis Group
LEAG has done great work for the government, commercial and academic lunar communities and it is really unfortunate that NASA is ending its support to them. Dr. Greenhagen’s message is excellent. It appears that LEAG intends to continue supporting NASA, as best as it can, even if NASA will no longer support LEAG.