NASA’s new Microbial Forward Contamination Evaluation (M‑FORCE) Tiger Team recently met at the NASA Safety Center in Cleveland, Ohio, to produce a comprehensive assessment of planetary protection’s forward contamination requirements on Mars.

The M‑FORCE Tiger Team, which was put together through a collaboration by the Science Mission Directorate and the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance’s Planetary Protection team, leverages more than 60 years of NASA science and engineering data and brings together experts across microbial ecology, extreme environments, atmospheric science, genomics, probabilistic modeling, assurance case development and planetary protection law to inform this evolution. Participating community members, selected from an open call for participation in September 2026, include:

• Charity Phillips‑Lander, Lead Scientist, Southwest Research Institute
• David P. Fidler, James Louis Calamaras Emeritus Professor of Law, Indiana University
• Joel S. Levine, Research Professor, William & Mary
• Mathieu Lapôtre, Associate Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Stanford University
• Nathan Hadland, Research Scientist, University of Arizona
• Parag Vaishampayan, Planetary Protection Subject Matter Expert, Independent Consultant (formerly of NASA)
• Trista Vick-Majors, Associate Professor, Michigan Technological University
• Una Natterman, Co-Founder, Pioneer Labs

The Tiger Team’s work is guided by a steering committee of subject matter experts from five NASA field centers:

• Mary Voytek, NASA Headquarters (HQ)
• Ian Milray, Glenn Research Center (GRC)
• Guiseppe Cataldo, Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
• Chelsi Cassilly, Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)
• Jessica Lee, Ames Research Center (ARC)
• Melinda Kahre, ARC
• Prabal Saxena, GSFC
• Heather Graham, GSFC

Ex‑officio support from NASA HQ  includes Nick Benardini, Erin Lalime, Elaine Seasly, Brent Heard, Lindsay Hays, David J. Smith, Becky McCauley Rench and Jake Bleacher.

In the coming weeks, the Tiger Team will provide findings to the NASA Administrator to help ensure NASA’s forward‑contamination framework remains scientifically defensible, operationally practical and aligned with the agency’s ambitions for accelerated exploration and expanded scientific return for upcoming Mars missions. The final findings will be released to the broader scientific community once approved.