Planetary protection for human missions to Mars: A forward look
Abstract
Robotic explorers currently sent to the red planet have stringent planetary protection requirements imposed. The COSPAR international consensus planetary protection policy obliges nations sending these missions to comply with specific biological cleanliness levels for hardware that may end up on the surface. This preserves the ability of future missions to do science at Mars unhindered by the contamination left behind by preceding missions. Yet this paradigm is not readily compatible with crewed missions sent to the martian surface: A decision to allow humans and their life support systems on the surface implies a level of biological con-tamination orders of magnitude more than that permitted for robotic missions.Still, the same two-fold intent of planetary protection remains: ensuring that the conduct of scientific investigations of possible extraterrestrial life forms, precursors, and remnants is not jeopardized, and; protecting the Earth from the potential hazard posed by extraterrestrial matter carried by a spacecraft returning from an interplanetary mission (forward- and back-contamination, respectively). Other presentations at this Assembly are addressing the future path to planetary protection requirements for crewed missions, but this presentation takes a forward look at the impact of planetary protection implementation on the hardware and systems needed for crewed exploration at the martian surface, based on recent expert reports and NASA mission architecture studies. In conclusion, planetary protection implementation will be a feature of future exploration efforts for Mars, including crewed missions. Determining how planetary protection should be implemented for crewed missions is contingent on improved knowledge of the Mars environment. It will likely result in broad impacts to engineering design and surface operations, that need to be integrated in planning from the earliest stages.
- Publication:
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42nd COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- July 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018cosp...42E3224S