Since the Call for Ideas for the next Earth Explorer Core Missions in 2005 ESA has been working on the next generation of candidate missions and is currently evaluating six Earth Explorer Core Mission concepts.

As a critical input to the decision making process which will lead to a recommendation from the Earth Science Advisory Committee to the Agency on what mission candidates to select for feasibility studies, the scientific community is invited to attend the
Earth Explorer User Consultation Meeting that will take place at the Belém Cultural Centre in Lisbon, Portugal on 20-21 January 2009.

The six candidate missions are:

• A-SCOPE
• BIOMASS
• COREH20
• FLEX
• PREMIER
• TRAQ

Please note that meeting space is limited and it is advised to register as soon as possible. The deadline for meeting registration is 9 December 2008.