Mercury Science Goals, Objectives and Investigations - Version 1.0

The MExAG Science Goals, Objectives, and Investigations document is the first of three MExAG goals documents: Science, Technology, and Community. This document is recommended to be cited as:

“The Mercury Exploration Assessment Group Science Goals, Objectives, and Investigations, MExAG (2025). Version 1.0"

The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of the science goals of the MExAG community for understanding and exploring Mercury. The intended audiences for the document are: (1) NASA, as a means for communicating the community-driven goals, and (2) the planetary science community, as a mechanism of sharing knowledge about important themes for understanding and exploring Mercury. This document will be updated every three years, to maintain relevance and utility. Community members wishing to provide input can do so at any time by emailing mexag.sc@gmail.com.

The science goals were devised by the MExAG Steering Committee after community discussions during the February 2021 MExAG Annual Meeting. This document was conceptualized and compiled between 2022 and 2025 by the MExAG Goals Working Group, including contributions from many members of the MExAG and Mercury science community. The text was edited by the MExAG Science Goals Working group and MExAG steering committee released for comment by the community in January 2025. Community comments were incorporated and the final document (Version 1.0) was released on August 1, 2025.

Current and Previous MExAG Goals Working Group Members:

Ryan Dewey, Gina DiBraccio, Carolyn Ernst, Mallory Kinczyk, Christian Klimczak, Stephen Parman, Alain Plattner, Jim Raines, Ron Vervack, Jack Wright

Contributors:

Sae Aizawa, Brendan Anzures, David Baker, JeffBalcerski, Océane Barraud, Sébastien Besse, Paul Byrne, Nancy Chabot, Clark Chapman, Matt Clement, Kelsey Crane, Gabriele Cremonese, Brett Denevi, Ariel Deutsch, Ryan Dewey, Mathieu Dumberry, Nick Dygert, Denton Ebel, Carolyn Ernst, Caleb Fassett, Sander Goossens, Steven Hauck, Robert Herrick, Daniel Heyner, Lon Hood, Dana Hurley, Suzanne Imber, Peter James, Xianzhe Jia, Catherine Johnson, Rosemary Killen, Mallory Kinczyk, Misha Kreslavsky, Laura Lark, David Lawrence, Francois Leblanc, Valeria Mangano, Simone Marchi, Elena Martellato, Erwan Mazarico, Tim McCoy, JeffMorgenthaler, Liam Morrissey, Megan Mouser, Larry Nittler, Stephen Parman, Michael Phillips, Alain Plattner, Gangkai Poh, Petr Pokorný, Anne Pommier, Parvathy Prem, Jim Raines, Edgard Rivera-Valentin, Dave Rothery, Daniel Savin, Carl Schmidt, Jim Slavin, Gregor Steinbrügge, Weijie Sun, Nicola Tosi, Ron Vervack, Thomas Watters, Shoshana Weider, Jack Wright