Agency Night at EPSC 2018

The first (very) full day of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2018 wrapped up with Agency Night. The session was moderated by Jean-Pierre Lebreton, EPSC Chair and Athena Coustenis (Europlanet Deputy Coordinator) and included speakers from national and international space agencies:

• Dr Christian Gritzner (DLR Space Agency)
• Prof. Heike Rauer (Director, DLR Institute of Planetary Research)
• Dr. Luigi Colangeli (Head of the Science Coordination Office, ESA)
• Mr. David Schurr (Deputy Director, Planetary Science Division, NASA HQ)
• Dr Alexei Malakhov(Senior Scientist, IKI)

In spite of the late timeslot (8-10 pm), more than 100 EPSC participants attended the session, interacted with the panel and asked so many questions that the session overran by 15 minutes. The representatives presented the space programmes related to planetary science from the different agencies and highlighted the importance of the scientific inputs and the value of the Europlanet actions in federating laboratories and other facilities to complement their actions.

The organisers would like to thank the speakers for excellent presentation and for answering the numerous questions from the audience.