NASA Astrobiology: Register For The NASA-DARES Task Force 2 Community Webinars

The NASA Astrobiology Program is pleased to announce the upcoming NASA Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy (NASA-DARES) Community Webinar Series, marking the next phase of open community engagement in the development of NASA’s Astrobiology Strategy. 

There is no cost to participate but registration is required in order to receive connection information.  

The webinar series will be hosted by NASA-DARES Task Force 2, a group selected through a highly competitive open call to facilitate community dialogue and steward the synthesis of input from across the astrobiology community.

All webinars will be held 12pm–4pm ET/9am–1pm PT on the following dates:

• February 25, 2026  
• March 4, 2026  
• March 11, 2026  
• March 18, 2026  
• March 25, 2026 

We encourage broad participation and look forward to engaging with the community throughout this series. The overall webinar structure is as follows, with Topics for Week 1 in Bold Font: 

• Welcome and Orientation (10 min.)
• Plenary Session (50 min.)
  – Short framing talk followed by moderated panel discussion
  – Plenary Topic: “Reflecting on the Last Decade of Astrobiology”
  Panelists: Dave Des Marais (NASA Ames), Lindsay Hays (NASA HQ), Greg Fournier (MIT)
• Break (10 min.)
• Focus Area Breakout Session #1 (50 min.) – “Topic of the Week”
  – Half of the Focus Areas host breakout rooms
  – Short framing talk and/or moderated panel discussion
  – Focus Area 1: Compartments, RNA, and Evolution
  – Focus Area 4: System Level Science: Star System Interactions, Delivery of Water, Asteroids, etc.
  – Focus Area 5: Planetary Atmospheres, Exoplanets and our Solar System
  – Focus Area 6: Community Need for Shared Sample Repository and Sample Reference Suite
  – Focus Area 9: Integration of Social Science and Humanities in Space Sciences
• Break (10 min.)
• Focus Area Breakout Session #2 (50 min.) – “Topic of the Week”
  – Remaining Focus Areas host breakout rooms
  – Short framing talks and/or moderated panel discussion
  – Focus Area 2: Abiotic Chemistry in the Planetary Environment
  – Focus Area 3: From Habitability to Evolvability: Conditions for Life’s Emergence on Rocky and Ocean Worlds
  -Focus Area 7: Open Science and Interoperability for Astrobiology
  – Focus Area 8: Review Findings/Learnings from TF1 FA8
• Break (10 min.)
• Focus Area Office Hours / Open Discussion (45 min.)
  – All Focus Areas host breakout rooms
  – Any relevant discussion topics welcome
• Closing Remarks (5 min.)