Letter to the Community: The Future of Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG)

Keith’s note: on 23 January 2026 the co-chairs of the Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG) sent this out to a wide distribution: Dear members of the OPAG community: “We are reaching out to you all in light of the announcement last week by NASA about AG funding and to offer reassurances about the future of the Outer Planets Assessment Group. OPAG is not disbanding.” (Full memo below)

We strongly believe that a community forum for discussion and feedback continues to be crucial and may have advantages operating independently of NASA. If you have not yet seen the announcement from NASA PSD Director Louise Prockter, the letter can be found here. While this decision is disappointing, we see it as an opportunity to rethink and evolve how we run OPAG and engage with the community and NASA.

OPAG will continue to issue reports, findings, and maintain our goals document so that the outer planets community consensus position on relevant issues are available to anyone who wants them, including NASA. There will be some changes to how we operate day-to-day in terms of how we store our documents and make them accessible, but our hope is that most of those changes will be minimal and may even increase visibility and communication across the community.

To this end, we are working to establish a new community email list to ensure a smooth transition as some of the existing infrastructure is sunset in April. We ask that you take a moment to sign up for continued communication through the OPAG email list here.

OPAG will continue to host meetings and will continue to have an important role to play with respect to defining science objectives for the gas giant and ice giant planetary systems and the myriad of ocean worlds and moons that populate the outer solar system (and beyond). We will also continue to support our ongoing missions, including Europa Clipper, Juno, and New Horizons, the Dragonfly mission currently set to launch in 2028, and the future Uranus Orbiter and Probe flagship mission prioritized in the most recent NASA Decadal Survey. These meetings will continue to serve a critical role in fostering community discussion and consensus-building, highlighting new scientific research and technology developments, and providing updates from missions, workshops, and efforts across NASA and international space agencies that support the endeavor of planetary exploration and discovery.

In the coming weeks, we will announce a one-day virtual meeting where we will receive a long-awaited update from PSD Director Louise Prockter and have space to discuss our future plans. OPAG has served as a resource for our community for over 20 years – we look forward to engaging with you all at that virtual meeting, and thank you for your continuing support!

Per Aspera Ad Astra,

Carol Paty and Morgan Cable, OPAG Co-Chairs, and our incredibly dedicated OPAG Steering Committee