Inaugural International COSPAR Planetary Protection Week April 2024

In April 2024 we hosted the Inaugural International COSPAR (Committee on Space Research) Planetary Protection Week (ICPPW), funded by the UK Space Agency’s International Bilateral Fund.  The event brought together researchers, policy makers and industry representatives to focus on the importance of maintaining the integrity of planetary bodies including Mars, icy world environments while protecting our own biosphere. 

The week included a 2 day community conference and the open and closed meetings of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Panel on Planetary Protection, which Karen Olsson-Francis is the UK Space Agency’s representative on. The event, hosted at the Royal Society, attracted nearly 200 people in person and online, with speakers from 17 space agencies and 24 countries.

As planetary protection is of growing interest to wider society, a public outreach panel was also organised for one of the evenings at the Geological Society of London (and online), with panellists from COSPAR, NASA, and ESA.

A conference dinner was held in the Earth Hall at the Natural History Museum, overlooked by Sophie the stegasaurous. 

The week’s events also attracted coverage from BBC Look East (lunchtime news starring Karen and Ben Tatton), BBC Three counties radio (a breakfast slot starring Silvio Sinibaldi) and journalists from The Times and New Scientist were in attendance for a press junket. Al del Moral also became a tiktok and instagram star for the week and related content was hosted on a dedicated collection on OpenLearn.