September 1st – 3rd, 2026

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to participate in the Community Science (Ad ASTRA) Workshop, focused on strategic planning for astrophysics. The workshop will be held September 1–3, 2026, in Pasadena, California.

This workshop is organized in the context of the recently announced NASA Astrophysics Strategic Technology & Research Accelerator (ASTRA) Initiative, see here. The objectives of ASTRA are to 1) identify strategic mission concepts that expand our frontier to dramatically advance astrophysics, 2) study those concepts at a low fidelity level to inform strategic decisions, and 3) advance the concepts ahead of formal pre-Phase A activities for potential projects. Outcomes from the workshop will help inform NASA’s Astrophysics Division on which mission concepts merit consideration for inclusion in the ASTRA initiative.

The workshop will be held in person and online. In-person attendance will be limited by venue capacity to approximately 250 people. The in-person registration deadline is August 15, 2026. Additional details and registration information are available on the workshop website.

We anticipate community-based activities to prepare for this workshop, including virtual seminars and team-based activities in the months preceding the workshop. To make sure that you receive updates about these activities, we have made a new email distribution list. Previous astro-2030 list members have been moved to this new list. If you have not previously joined the astro-2030 email list, be sure to join the new workshop mailing list by sending email to Ad-ASTRA-join@lists.nasa.gov with Subject="join". 

In order to be fully informed of these advance planning activities, we strongly encourage signing up to the workshop email distribution list as soon as possible.

Participating in this workshop is an opportunity to join with other members of the astrophysics community to continue expanding humanity’s knowledge of the Universe. 

Thank you.

Joint Program Offices of 

Exoplanet Exploration, 

Cosmic Origins,

Physics of the Cosmos