And Over to You

Webinar

And Over to You

Five Conversations on Sample Return Missions

This series is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-Japan Foundation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Webinar Schedule

· Nate Taylor & Elizabeth Tasker — 26 February 5pm JST (Thursday) 6:30 pm ACST / 7pm AEST
· Elizabeth Tasker & Tomo Usui — 5 March 5pm JST (Thursday) 6:30 pm ACST / 7pm AEST
· Tomo Usui & Patrick Michel — 10 March 5pm JST (Tuesday) 6:30 pm ACST / 7pm AEST
· Patrick Michel & Shogo Tachibana — 17 March 6pm JST (Tuesday) 7:30 pm ACST / 8pm AEST
· Shogo Tachibana & Brandon Mahan — 25 March 3pm JST (Wednesday) 4:30 pm ACST / 5pm AEST

Registration - https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1539264

And Over to You: Five Conversations on Sample Return Missions
Half a Century of Partnership, a New Era of Discovery

And Over to You is a five-part webinar series exploring the scientific, technical, and strategic significance of sample return missions at a pivotal moment for international space cooperation. Marking over fifty years of collaboration between key spacefaring nations, the series brings together paired speakers from across agencies, academia, and industry to reflect on past achievements while looking ahead to the next generation of missions — from the Moon and asteroids to Mars and beyond.

Each session will feature two speakers in conversation with surprise guest appearances offering additional perspectives. The discussions will focus on mission design, scientific return, planetary defence, curation and analysis, as well as the broader implications for space exploration and international partnership.

Designed to be accessible while remaining technically substantive, the series aims to foster cross-sector dialogue and inspire the next phase of collaborative discovery. Held after work hours to accommodate international time differences, the sessions are open to all — everyone is welcome.

Speakers' Bio

Nate Taylor

Nate Taylor is a graduate in Applied Physics and Mathematics from the University of South Australia, as well as an alumnus of the International Space University. He works as an Assistant Director of Space Policy at the Australian Space Agency in his role Managing the Australian Space Discovery Centre. Nate also has a strong affiliation with UNISEC-Global who promote space engineering programs for university students around the world, having been a host for their monthly meetings and helping to develop education content. Nate describes his own career pathway as an n-body problem ; n>3, having previously worked in a plethora roles ranging from carnival hand, to finance manager, before finally completing a delta-v burn towards the space industry after discovering his own desire to create moments where the wonder and potential of the cosmos are reflected in the eyes of others.

Elizabeth Tasker

Dr Elizabeth Tasker is a researcher and science communicator at the JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). She is a member of the Hayabusa2 outreach team, working on English translations during the mission and was the English voice of Hayabusa2 on X. She is now the international outreach lead for the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission team. Tasker also writes the feature blog, “Cosmos”, for ISAS, covering the institutes activities, collaborations, and plans for the future.

Tasker has helped develop the international exhibits for the Ryugu sample grains, which have been on display to the public in Australia, the UK, France, and Thailand. She has couriered the asteroid grains overseas for these exhibit, and had to explain to many perplexed airport security staff what she was carrying.

Tomo Usui

Dr Tomohiro Usui is a Professor at ISAS, JAXA, where he leads research in the Department of Solar System Sciences and the Astromaterial Science Research Group. He also holds a professorship in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at the University of Tokyo.

He received a Ph.D. in Geochemistry in 2024 from Okayama University, Japan. Thereafter, he worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Tennessee and NASA Johnson Space Center, and as a faculty member at the Tokyo Institute of Technology before joining JAXA in 2018. His research primarily explores the geochemistry of Martian meteorites, focusing on the evolution of water and the paleo-environment on Mars. He has contributed to significant projects such as JAXA's sample return missions, including the Martian Moon eXplorer (MMX) and Hayabusa2.

Patrick Michel

Dr Patrick Michel is a Director of Research at CNRS (french National Center for Scientific Research) at the Lagrange Laboratory of the Côte d’Azur Observatory in Nice, France. He is also Global Fellow of the University of Tokyo. He was born in Saint-Tropez, where the first direct contact between France and Japan occurred in 1615.

He is the science lead of the planetary defense space mission Hera of the European Space Agency (ESA) and RAMSES (ESA-JAXA) and is a co-Principal Investigator of the IDEFIX rover (CNES-DLR) on JAXA MMX Phobos sample return mission. He is an expert of asteroid dynamical and physical properties and of numerical simulations of the impact and surface processes on low-gravity bodies. In particular, he is the lead author of the first paper exposing the first full simulations of asteroid disruptions, showing that most small asteroids born from such disruptions have a rubble pile structure. He is co-Investigator of the asteroid sample return missions Hayabusa2 (JAXA) and OSIRIS-REx (NASA), and collaborator of the NASA Lucy mission. He is also a full member of the International Academy of Astronautics, of the steering committee of the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) and President of the Near-Earth Object Working Group of the International Astronomical Union. He was awarded the Carl Sagan Medal for excellence in public communication by the American Astronomical Society. The asteroid (7561) Patrickmichel is named after him.

Shogo Tachibana

Dr Shogo Tachibana is a professor of cosmochemistry at the UTokyo Organization for Planetary and Space Science and Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of Tokyo, Japan. He is also a specially appointed professor at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, JAXA, Japan. His research focuses on the origin and early evolution of the Solar System. Specifically, he investigates the kinetics of dust processes, such as evaporation, condensation, crystallization, and isotope exchange, in protoplanetary disks, as well as the synthesis and diversification of organic matter from the Sun’s parent molecular cloud to small bodies, through laboratory experiments. He led the development of the Hayabusa2 sampler system and was responsible for the initial analysis of samples returned from the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu.

Brandon Mahan

Dr Brandon Mahan is an analytical geochemist in the School of Geography Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Melbourne, where he is Head of the Melbourne Analytical Geochemistry research group, and Chair of the Melbourne Isotope Analytics Research Platform. His expertise extends across Earth & Planetary Systems and into Life Sciences, with a passion for trace metals and their isotope systematics, and a drive to develop optimised laboratory and analytical techniques.

In Planetary Science and Cosmochemistry, Dr Mahan has a keen interest in lab and analytical R&D and applying geo-analytical approaches to constraining Earth’s formation conditions through tracing the movements of metals and their isotopes during processes such as impact, core formation, and other processes that occur on and to celestial bodies. In the age of sample return missions, Dr Mahan applies this approach towards developing best practice approaches to analysing extraterrestrial materials, and towards developing digital research infrastructure for understanding and interpreting the composition of returned samples from space missions relative to Earth, meteorites and the Solar System.