Planetary protection aspects for in-situ and sample return exobiological experimentations

Details Planetary protection aspects for in-situ and sample return exobiological experimentations Planetary protection aspects for in-situ and sample return exobiological experimentations

Aug 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001esasp.496..113d&link_type=abstract

In: Exo-/astro-biology. Proceedings of the First European Workshop, 21 - 23 May 2001, ESRIN, Frascati, Italy. Eds.: P. Ehrenfreu

Biology

Exobiology, Space Missions

Scientific paper

According to the article IX of the OUTER SPACE TREATY (London/Washington January 27., 1967) and in the frame extraterrestrial missions, it is required to preserve planets and Earth from contamination. Consequently, COSPAR (Committee of Space Research) has established some Planetary Protection recommendations for all involved project teams in order to build specifications and to implement the required planetary protection program. The goal is to protect target planets from Earth microbiological contamination and also to protect Earth environment from an eventual biocontamination coming from extraterrestrial samples or carried by contaminated sample return probes. Planetary protection takes also into account the protection of exobiological science. The validation of its results depends strongly of the biological and organic chemical cleanliness of samples, and more generally of how the samples have been preserved. CNES past experience in planetary protection is related to the Mars 96 mission for which a common Russian-French planetary protection program has been defined and implemented. This program included equipment biocleaning and sterilization using hydrogen peroxide gas plasma, gamma rays and dry heat, clean integration in class 100 facility with specific sterile procedure and microbiological level controls. The four Mars 96 landers have to comply with a maximum acceptable biocontamination level of 300 spores per square meter and 3×105 spores per vehicle in order to protect Mars environment against terrestrial life jeoparzing. One of CNES present interest is focussed on exobiological missions, including sample return missions, as well as works and involvement in COSPAR activities linked to planetary protection. The search of life, organic molecules or compounds related to life imposes harder biological and organic cleanliness specifications, associated with constraints for sample preservation, in order to avoid any mistake or doubt on scientific results. Biological and organic cleanliness is probably the main constraint, but function of where and how the samples are collected, confined, transported and analyzed could have effects on samples characteristic.

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