Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers, has been named the chair of the steering committee for the upcoming planetary science decadal survey, according to David Smith of the National Academies’ Space Studies Board. Squyres, of Cornell University, will address LPSC attendees at 12:15 pm on Wednesday.

The solar system decadal survey is like its bigger sibling the astrophysics decadal survey, the latest incarnation of which began last year under the supervision of Stanford University’s Roger Blandford. Both are designed to corral and collate the desires of scientists and put them into a prioritized wish-list that agencies and the US Congress then can use to justify their spending.

The last planetary decadal was led by Michael Belton of Belton Space Exploration Initiatives, and was completed in 2003. There will likely be more scrutiny of costs; the two highest priority big missions from the last decadal were a Europa Explorer mission and a Mars Sample Return, missions that are unlikely to happen next decade. The $2 billion Mars Science Laboratory was listed as a ‘medium’ sized mission to be performed for less than $650 million.

Squyres, who has run one of the most successful missions in NASA history (and one much beloved by the public), ought to be a popular choice. Even the non-Mars people who will complain about a supposed bias for Mars should be consoled by his NASA bio, which describes his past involvement in the Magellan mission to Venus, the Cassini mission to Saturn, and the NEAR mission to the asteroid Eros.

Image: NASA