Recently Published Paper Highlights Planetary Protection Knowledge Gaps for Crewed Missions to Mars
A recently published paper details knowledge gaps for crewed missions to Mars and methods for closing these gaps from a Planetary Protection (PP) standpoint. Multiple authors contributed to the paper, titled “Planetary Protection Knowledge Gap Closure Enabling Crewed Missions to Mars,” including Dr. J. Andy Spry, Senior Scientist at the SETI Institute and PP consultant at NASA Headquarters.
COSPAR Interdisciplinary Meeting Overview
COSPAR maintains the international policy and guidelines for implementing PP in compliance with the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty.
The Committee identified that despite the 2010-era guidelines for crewed missions to Mars, gaps in our knowledge would make it essentially impossible to design a crewed Mars exploration mission compatible with Outer Space Treaty compliance.
In response, the Committee sponsored a series of interdisciplinary meetings to address these knowledge gaps related to PP to facilitate adequate support for the implementation of crewed exploration missions.
“As we turn our focus from the robotic exploration of Mars to the development of crewed missions, we will undoubtedly need to answer new questions we haven’t yet considered,” said Spry. “By being aware of the gaps in our knowledge, NASA, along with other agencies and stakeholders, will be better positioned to develop methods for addressing them.”
The paper focuses on the importance of protecting the integrity of scientific investigations on Mars while protecting the Earth’s biosphere from harmful effects and describes the outcome of a multi-year series of interdisciplinary meetings led by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) between 2016 and 2022.
The paper specifically addresses knowledge gaps while also identifying potential paths for closing them. It includes the background scientific basis for each topic discussed and knowledge updates that have occurred since the conclusion of the meeting series. Additionally, the paper summarizes and updates the work being done by COSPAR and space agency partners, with broad input from academia, industry and other stakeholders, to identify a robust set of knowledge gaps as they relate to PP.
The paper also contains a knowledge gap data table intended to act as a starting point for making future progress in developing an end-to-end PP requirements implementation solution for a future crewed mission to Mars.
Additionally, the paper highlights the importance of space agencies and other stakeholders integrating PP planning into their engineering activities as they create Mars exploration hardware. By doing so, they will be better positioned to ensure the timely closure of knowledge gaps as operational concepts evolve. As preparations continue for crewed missions to Mars, the expectation is that different agencies and organizations will share their knowledge with one another and work together to develop technical approaches that achieve PP.
“In order to reach our agency goals with Planetary Protection in mind, we need to work alongside our interagency partners to share knowledge and develop processes that protect both Earth and Mars,” said Nick Benardini, Planetary Protection Officer. “This paper is vital to helping us understand and address knowledge gaps while serving as yet another tool in our toolbox to help us achieve our ambitious mission.”
You can read the paper here and contact Benardini or Spry for additional information.