SpaceRef - Astrobiology and Life Science

28 May 2006

NASA Planetary Protection website - Welcome to the official NASA Planetary Protection website. Planetary protection activities for NASA are managed by the Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters. Our mission is to prevent biological cross-contamination that could result from NASA's solar system exploration missions.

COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy - COSPAR maintains and promulgates this planetary protection policy for the reference of spacefaring nations, both as an international standard on procedures to avoid organic-constituent and biological contamination in space exploration, and to provide accepted guidelines in this area to guide compliance with the wording of this UN Space Treaty and other relevant international agreements.

Bring Em Back Alive - Or At Least Carefully - Explores the issues surrounding the means whereby safety is assured, as well as the societal processes whereby these assurances are developed, so as to allow samples from other worlds to be brought to Earth. Article from the Jan/Feb 1999 issue of Ad Astra magazine.

Planetary Protection - A description of the debate over planetary protection and the eventual procedures used to sterilize the two Viking Landers in "On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet. 1958-1978, NASA SP-4212, Chapter 3 "The Rise of Exobiology as a Discipline". NASA Headquarters.

Assessment of Planetary Protection Requirements for Venus Missions -- Letter Report, NRC Task Group on Planetary Protection Requirements for Venus Missions, National Research Council

Swapping Rocks: Exchange of Surface Material Among the Planets - An article by Jay Melosh which originally appeared in The Planetary Report in July 1994 that describes mechanisms whereby rocks (possibly containing intact life forms) could be transferred from the surface of Mars to Earth.

Exobiology Strategy Report - NASA's planetary protection policy and its implementation demonstrate to the public that NASA is safeguarding the planets, including our own, during space exploration. The U.S. is signatory to a 1967 international agreement, monitored by COSPAR, which establishes the requirement to avoid forward and back contamination of planetary bodies during exploration.

Planetary protection, ESA - Planetary protection is already a tricky technology issue when considering geology missions to Mars. It becomes much more demanding when it comes to searching for life.

Planetary protection, Wikipedia - Planetary Protection is the term used to describe a guiding principle in design of an interplanetary mission that aims to prevent biological contamination of both the target celestial body and the Earth.

Preventing the Forward Contamination of Europa, NRC Space Studies Board - there is now great interest in learning much more about Europa, primarily through a series of space probes to survey and eventually to land on the surface. But any spacecraft that transports scientific instruments can also carry terrestrial microbes. This report deals with the important issue of how to protect Europa from such inadvertent biological contamination.

Evaluating the Biological Potential in Samples Returned from Planetary Satellites and Small Solar System Bodies, NRC Space Studies Board - NASA's efforts in planetary protection seek to preserve planetary conditions for future exploration of biological constituents and to protect Earth and its biosphere from potential extraterrestrial sources of contamination.

Preventing the Forward Contamination of Mars, NRC - Recent spacecraft and robotic probes to Mars have yielded data that are changing our understanding significantly about the possibility of existing or past life on that planet. Coupled with advances in biology and life-detection techniques, these developments place increasing importance on the need to protect Mars from contamination by Earth-borne organisms.