Questions tagged [planetary-protection]
The careful sterilization of any space probes or missions to prevent contaminating any extraterrestrial worlds with life from Earth. Not to be confused with [planetary-defense], which protects Earth from asteroids and other physical threats.
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What precautions are planned to prevent samples returned from Mars crashing and releasing organisms into Earth's environment?
Bias disclaimer: I think that returning samples from Mars to Earth at a point in time where we also suspect there is a chance that there is microbial life on Mars is ill-advised and arrogant. We are ...
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Is there any demonstrated or even proposed technology that can sterilize a spacecraft with 100% certainty and yet leave it electronically functional?
In this answer to Why are there no robotic missions on Europa or Enceladus I wrote:
Missions going through the ice and into the ocean are currently hypothetical and problematic. You need a lot of ...
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Why is Curiosity not heading for Peace Vallis?
For over 5 years Curiosity has been successfully searching for many signs that water was once present at Gale crater. Its geology is notable for containing both clays and sulfate minerals that may ...
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Why do we worry about contaminating some solar bodies but not others?
On 15th September 2017, the Cassini probe will be destroyed by crashing it into Saturn. This will be done in order to eliminate the unlikely risk of it crashing into and forward contaminating one of ...
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Who decided that a <1 in 10,000 probability of contaminating the europan ocean by a viable Earth microorganism was legally and ethically sufficient?
In comments below Is there any demonstrated or even proposed technology that can sterilize a spacecraft with 100% certainty and yet leave it electronically functional? there is a link to Europa Lander ...
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Why was Dawn placed into an orbit that would only be stable for "decades"
Last year NASA put Dawn into an orbit around Ceres that Ars Technica said "would remain stable for decades" so as to not contaminate Ceres.
Decades are pretty small on the cosmic scale though. Why ...
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Why do deep space probes have to be sterilized?
Correct me if I'm wrong but a probe to Mars will take months, during which time it's exposed to a vacuum and irradiated by the sun. It sounds to me like this would kill any micro-organisms on the ...
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Why not bring life to Venus along with the next exploring mission?
Why not bring cyanobacteria and fertilizer to the atmosphere of Venus to improve conditions for life there by producing oxygen ?
Planetary protection could be a reason.
According to Wikipedia:
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Why are we concerned about Cassini contaminating Saturn's moons when we landed Huygens probe on one of them?
Cassini is scheduled to crash land into Saturn later in 2017. The reason stated was that they did not want to risk contaminating any of Saturn's moons.
However, during the Cassini mission, we landed ...
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Are any space agencies working on an (essentially) 100% reliable sterilization technique for spacecraft bound for subsurface ocean worlds?
One answer to my previous question Is there any demonstrated or even proposed technology that can sterilize a spacecraft with 100% certainty and yet leave it electronically functional? asserts:
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Is it true that NASA is hiring a new 'planetary protection officer'?
NASA is hiring a new 'planetary protection officer' to defend Earth from alien matter, and the pay is a six-figure salary: as much as $187,000 a year.
When we are not sure whether aliens exist, why ...
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Does exploration of Venus' atmosphere now require any planetary protection protocols?
This answer quotes Marc Rayman's August 21, 2018 Dawn Journal entry:
Not all solar system bodies need such protection. The Moon, Mercury and Venus, for example, have not been of interest for ...
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How are interplanetary spacecraft protected from biological contamination while being integrated on their launchers?
After having been disinfected in some NASA lab for forward planetary protection reasons, how are spacecraft stored and brought to the launch pad and loaded into the fairings, in order to prevent them ...
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Is Curiosity allowed to investigate the subsurface of the "clay unit " near Mount Sharp?
From the bottom image in this article from september 2016 it can be seen that there was a possible path for Curiosity in the direction of Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons).
At the end of januari 2018 however ...
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Why would bringing samples from Mars back to Earth be a "civilization-level changing capability"?
The Space News article NASA continues Mars sample return mission studies
Among those planned missions is Mars sample return, a multi-mission architecture that involves collecting samples of Martian ...
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Are people actually serious about mining the Moon?
I see a lot of enthusiasm about the possibility of mining the Moon. But worryingly, I don't see much said about the potential horrific effects of this.
I mean, guys: the Moon is actually pretty damn ...
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