TOWARDS A NEW COSPAR EXPLORATION ROADMAP 2026-2046: A preliminary presentation of the Roadmap vision and proposed actions, with focus on LunarExploration.

In the context of increased environmental awareness that characterizes the first half of the 21st century, COSPAR has invited the space science community, via all of its Commissions, Panels and Associates representing the different disciplines and countries engaged in Space Exploration, to contribute to the development of a new Exploration Roadmap. This roadmap will present a Vision for the period 2026-2046, and a list of actions for the next decade, 2026-2036. The starting point of the design of this new Roadmap was to ask the space science community to answer the three following questions:
1- what international cooperation activities should COSPAR propose and possibly coordinate to maximize the science return of space exploration?
2- which science questions and challenges should be addressed in priority by the exploration program, in each field or domain of activity?
3- what actions should COSPAR propose to protect the environment and cultural heritage of celestial bodies?
In this communication, we will report for the first time to the European Planetary Science community assembled at the EPSC2026 about the proposed contents of the Roadmap, based on community responses to these three questions and on the synthesis proposed at the COSPAR 2026 Assembly in Florence, just one month before the EPSC. We will place a special emphasis on the central role played by international cooperation in Lunar exploration in this new Roadmap, and on the key role that the European science community is ideally prepared to play in the implementation of the Roadmap in the coming two decades. We will open all propositions of Roadmap actions to comments and suggestions by EPSC participants.