NASA is building a Space Microbial Culture Collection (SMCC), a culture repository to house a diverse collection of microbial isolates from space-related research and exploration efforts. SMCC will store, curate and make these valuable biological resources available to the public.

NASA hosted the Science and Planetary Protection in Advance of Human Missions to Mars Workshop as the pathbreaker for a new series developed to engage the Mars science community in the planning process for precursor science, and ultimately human exploration, on Mars.

The first release of NASA’s BioSTAR tool is here — and it’s ready to make life easier for Planetary Protection engineers across the agency! BioSTAR is an interactive, web-based tool that brings everything you need for estimating bioburden and building your Planetary Protection Equipment List (PPEL) together in one place.

NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection is looking toward the future of solar system exploration and now has a new logo to represent its mission effectively.

The updated logo, designed in partnership with the NASA Safety Center, embodies exploration of the solar system while emphasizing the importance of Planetary Protection (PP) and its connection to enabling science with safety at the forefront.

The logo also highlights the focus on Earth’s biosphere while embracing and supplementing the traditional spore assay with metagenomics methods. Additionally, it captures both a robotic and crew mission portfolio through its design.

The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) recently updated its Planetary Protection (PP) policy, available on the COSPAR PP website. The COSPAR Panel on PP subcommittee proposed and drafted this new policy.

Amy Baker, Planetary Protection project manager for the SETI Institute, is set to retire at the end of June 2024. In recognition of her contributions to the Office of Planetary Protection and NASA’s mission, the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance would like to honor her achievements and acknowledge her important work in support of the agency.

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.

When OSIRIS-REx returns a sample of the asteroid Bennu to Earth on September 24, 2023, it will kick off a carefully orchestrated retrieval process. One thing the retrieval team won’t need to worry about is protecting Earth and its inhabitants from the sample.