National Harbor, Maryland, USA - DLR’s Director Space Programs, Dr. Rolf Densing, met with his counterpart senior managers from space agencies that comprise the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) on June 23 near Washington, D.C.
The meeting participants agreed that significant progress has been made since their joint release of "The Global Exploration Strategy" (GES) in May 2007. The GES articulated a shared vision of coordinated human and robotic space exploration focused on destinations in the solar system where humans may one day live and work.
The senior managers acknowledged the valuable work of the ISECG - the GES implementing body - during the last three years and welcomed the development of its lunar reference architecture. This internationally coordinated architecture is a concept for human-robotic exploration to multiple locations across the moon's surface.
They reached consensus on expanding their work to all key exploration destinations and the critical building blocks required to reach these destinations as part of a "global exploration roadmap" - a key part of an evolving international architecture effort. The senior managers agreed to hold further strategic discussions at the senior management level to review the progress of the ISECG.
Among the findings from the GES was the need to establish a voluntary, non-binding international coordination mechanism through which partner agencies could exchange information regarding interests, plans and activities in space exploration, and to work together on strengthening both individual exploration programs and collective efforts.
The meeting included representatives from Space Agencies and Embassies of Canada, the European Space Agency, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.