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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2008

A Planetary Protection Strategy for the Mars Aerial Regional-Scale Environmental Survey (ARES) Mission Concept

The Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) is a Mars exploration mission concept designed to send an airplane to fly through the lower atmosphere of Mars, with the goal of taking scientific measurements of the atmosphere, surface, and subsurface phenomenon. ARES was first proposed to the Mars Scout program in December 2002 for a 2007 launch opportunity and was selected to proceed with a Phase A study, step-2 proposal which was submitted in May 2003. ARES was not selected for the Scout mission, but efforts continued on risk reduction of the atmospheric flight system in preparation for the next Mars Scout opportunity in 2006. The ARES concept was again proposed in July 2006 to the Mars Scout program but was not selected to proceed into Phase A. This document describes the Planetary Protection strategy that was developed in ARES Pre Phase-A activities to help identify, early in the design process, certain hardware, assemblies, and/or subsystems that will require unique design considerations based on constraints imposed by Planetary Protection requirements. Had ARES been selected as an exploration project, information in this document would make up the ARES Project Planetary Protection Plan.

Kuhl, Christopher A.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Adopting an Objectives-Driven Assurance Case Approach for Achieving Space Flight Mission Planetary Protection Objectives

Traditionally, NASA has utilized prescriptive technical and process requirements to ensure safety and mission assurance performance objectives for space flight missions are achieved. While prescriptive re-quirements may be easier to communicate and manage throughout the systems engineering process, the highly-constrained nature of prescriptive requirements can limit the ability to take advantage of cost-saving opportunities and offer limited ability to explore other options or alternative designs, processes, and methods. It can also be difficult to develop prescriptive requirements for objectives that are prob-abilistic in nature or that cannot be satisfied by direct verification. In contrast, the development of an assurance case allows for a compelling, comprehensible, and valid argument to be developed with support-ing evidence that shows safety and mission assurance objectives have been satisfied. Analogous to how patent applications are constructed for inventions, an assurance case has a high-level claim of meeting a safety and mission assurance objective, followed by a more specific set of sub-claims and technical evidence which supports the claims. The objectives-driven assurance case approach allows for a better understand-ing and exploration of the trade space, more flexibility to balance trades, and the ability to realize and implement technical and process innovations for resource, time, and cost savings. The assurance case is a living case that evolves over the entire program life cycle. Recently, NASA’s Office of Planetary Pro-tection (OPP) has adopted the assurance case approach as an acceptable methodology for demonstrating avoidance of contamination of target solar system bodies explored by NASA space flight missions. This methodology has been incorporated into NASA’s new technical standard for planetary protection and is currently being utilized by the Mars Sample Return campaign for safe sample containment during sample return. This presentation will explore the development and implementation of an assurance case approach in the context of planetary protection, the shift from prescriptive requirements and the ongoing culture change in the technical community, and the support and guidance from NASA’s OPP in adopting the assurance case approach for achieving planetary protection objectives on NASA’s space flight missions.

Elaine Seasly↗
NASA NTRS2006

Planning for planetary protection : challenges beyond Mars

This document summarizes the technical challenges to planetary protection for these targets of interest and outlines some of the considerations, particularly at the system level, in designing an appropriate technology investment strategy for targets beyond Mars.

astrobiology↗
NASA NTRS2015

Mars Soil-Based Resource Processing and Planetary Protection

The ability to extract and process resources at the site of exploration into products and services, commonly referred to as In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), can have significant benefits for robotic and human exploration missions. In particular, the ability to use in situ resources to make propellants, fuel cell reactants, and life support consumables has been shown in studies to significantly reduce mission mass, cost, and risk, while enhancing or enabling missions not possible without the incorporation of ISRU. In December 2007, NASA completed the Mars Human Design Reference Architecture (DRA) 5.0 study. For the first time in a large scale Mars architecture study, water from Mars soil was considered as a potential resource. At the time of the study, knowledge of water resources (their form, concentration, and distribution) was extremely limited. Also, due to lack of understanding of how to apply planetary protection rules and requirements to ISRU soil-based excavation and processing, an extremely conservative approach was incorporated where only the top several centimeters of ultraviolet (UV) radiated soil could be processed (assumed to be 3% water by mass). While results of the Mars DRA 5.0 study showed that combining atmosphere processing to make oxygen and methane with soil processing to extract water provided the lowest mission mass, atmosphere processing to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into oxygen was baselined for the mission since it was the lowest power and risk option. With increased knowledge and further clarification of Mars planetary protection rules, and the recent release of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) report on "Special Regions and the Human Exploration of Mars", it is time to reexamine potential water resources on Mars, options for soil processing to extract water, and the implications with respect to planetary protection and Special Regions on Mars.

Sanders, G. B.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Planetary protection issues and the future exploration of Mars

The results of a workshop are presented in which the issues of planetary protection and biological cross-contamination between the earth and Mars were addressed. A detailed proposal is given regarding strategies for the implementation of the conclusions of the workshop. The significant findings include: (1) the need for evaluating protection issues via unmanned precursor missions; (2) the consideration of all Martian samples as hazardous; and (3) the strategy to avoid Martian landings until it is shown that Martian materials are safe for human contact. The resulting strategy is based on preventing the forward contamination of orbiters and landers by following Mars Observer and Viking planetary-protection procedures. The strategy also allows for back-contamination prevention by means of sample sealing, containment, and quarantine analysis.

De Vincenzi, D. L.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Planetary Protection Technology for Mars Sample Return

The NASA Mars Exploration Program has recently adopted a plan that includes a first Mars sample return (MSR) mission proposed for launch in 2013. Such a mission would deal with two new categories of planetary protection requirements: (1) assuring a very low probability of inadvertent release of the sample in order to provide extra protection against the extremely unlikely possibility of biological hazards in the returned material and (2) keeping the samples free of round-trip Earth organisms to facilitate confirmation of safety after return to Earth. This paper describes the planetary-protection-related technical challenges awaiting any MSR mission and describes work in progress on technology needed to meet these challenges. New technology is needed for several functions. Containment assurance requires breaking the chain of contact with Mars: the exterior of the sample container must not be contaminated with Mars material either during the loading process or during launch from the Mars surface.

planetary protection↗
NASA NTRS2000

Integration of Planetary Protection Activities

Research and activities under this grant have focused on a systematic examination and analysis of critical questions likely to impact planetary protection (PP) controls and implementation for Mars sample return missions (MSR). Four areas in the non-scientific and social realms were selected for special attention because of their importance to future mission planning and concern about critical timing or possible economic impacts on MSR mission implementation. These include: (1) questions of legal uncertainty and the decision making process, (2) public perception of risks associated with sample return, (3) risk communication and Education/Public Outreach , and (4) planetary protection implications of alternative mission architectures, for both robotic and human sample return missions. In its entirety, NAG 2-986 has encompassed three categories of activity: (1) research and analysis (Race), (2) subcontracted research (MacGregor/Decision Research), and (3) consulting services.

Race, Margaret S.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Developing Tools and Technologies to Meet MSR Planetary Protection Requirements

This paper describes the tools and technologies that need to be developed for a Caching Rover mission in order to meet the overall Planetary Protection requirements for future Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign. This is the result of an eight-month study sponsored by the Mars Exploration Program Office. The goal of this study is to provide a future MSR project with a focused technology development plan for achieving the necessary planetary protection and sample integrity capabilities for a Mars Caching Rover mission.

fetch rover↗
NASA NTRS2010

Europa Planetary Protection for Juno Jupiter Orbiter

NASA's Juno mission launched in 2011 and will explore the Jupiter system starting in 2016. Juno's suite of instruments is designed to investigate the atmosphere, gravitational fields, magnetic fields, and auroral regions. Its low perijove polar orbit will allow it to explore portions of the Jovian environment never before visited. While the Juno mission is not orbiting or flying close to Europa or the other Galilean satellites, planetary protection requirements for avoiding the contamination of Europa have been taken into account in the Juno mission design.The science mission is designed to conclude with a deorbit burn that disposes of the spacecraft in Jupiter's atmosphere. Compliance with planetary protection requirements is verified through a set of analyses including analysis of initial bioburden, analysis of the effect of bioburden reduction due to the space and Jovian radiation environments, probabilistic risk assessment of successful deorbit, Monte-Carlo orbit propagation, and bioburden reduction in the event of impact with an icy body.

Juno↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Planetary Protection Strategy of Mars Sample Return Earth Return Orbiter Mission

The Mars Sample Return campaign aims to use three flight missions and one ground element to safely bring rock cores, regolith and atmospheric samples from the surface of Mars to Earth to answer key questions about the geologic and climate history of Mars, including the potential for ancient life. Since its landing in Jezero Crater in 2021, the first mission, NASA’s Mars 2020, has collected a number of samples on the crater floor and on the delta using the Perseverance rover. Subsequent missions would recover the sealed sample tubes, launch them into Mars orbit, and transport them back to Earth. The ground element would be a high-containment facility that would isolate and protect the samples during initial sample characterization, which would include sample safety assessments and time-sensitive scientific investigations. These elements are currently in the planning and design stages of development, and represent an international effort of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and many industry partners. The work presented here provides an overview of the Planetary Protection strategy of the third flight mission, the ESA-led Earth Return Orbiter (ERO), which hosts the NASA-provided Capture, Containment, and Return System (CCRS). ERO-CCRS would detect and capture the container with up to 30 sealed tubes previously put in Martian orbit, contain them in redundant containers to ensure that no potentially hazardous Mars particles are released, and return them to Earth through an entry vehicle. Both NASA and ESA policies comply with the United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty by planning to protect Earth’s biosphere from any potential adverse effects from material returned from solar system bodies beyond the Earth-Moon system. In the conduct of Mars Sample Return, the two agencies have mutually agreed to apply approaches consistent with their own planetary protection standards to the campaign elements they each provides.

mars sample return↗
NASA NTRS2023

The Planetary Protection Strategy of Mars Sample Return’s Earth Return Orbiter Mission

The Mars Sample Return campaign aims to use three flight missions and one ground element to safely bring rock cores, regolith and atmospheric samples from the surface of Mars to Earth to answer key questions about the geologic and climate history of Mars, including the potential for ancient life. Since its landing in Jezero Crater in 2021, the first mission, NASA’s Mars 2020, has collected a number of samples on the crater floor and on the delta using the Perseverance rover. Subsequent missions would recover the sealed sample tubes, launch them into Mars orbit, and transport them back to Earth. The ground element would be a high-containment facility that would isolate and protect the samples during initial sample characterization, which would include sample safety assessments and time-sensitive scientific investigations. These elements are currently in the planning and design stages of development, and represent an international effort of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and many industry partners. The work presented here provides an overview of the planetary protection strategy of the third flight mission, the ESA-led Earth Return Orbiter (ERO), which hosts the NASA-provided Capture, Containment, and Return System (CCRS). ERO-CCRS would capture the container with up to 30 sealed tubes previously put in Martian orbit, contain them in redundant containers to ensure that no potentially hazardous Mars particles are released, and return them to Earth through an entry vehicle. Both NASA and ESA policies comply with the United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty by planning to protect Earth’s biosphere from any potential adverse effects from material returned from solar system bodies beyond the Earth-Moon system. In the conduct of Mars Sample Return, the two agencies have agreed to apply approaches consistent with their own planetary protection standards to the campaign elements each provides.

Mars Sample Return↗
NASA NTRS2024

The Planetary Protection Strategy of Mars Sample Return’s Earth Return Orbiter Mission

The Mars Sample Return campaign aims to use three flight missions and one ground element to safely bring rock cores, regolith and atmospheric samples from the surface of Mars to Earth to answer key questions about the geologic and climate history of Mars, including the potential for ancient life. Since its landing in Jezero Crater in 2021, the first mission, NASA’s Mars 2020, has collected a number of samples on the crater floor and on the delta using the Perseverance rover. Subsequent missions would recover the sealed sample tubes, launch them into Mars orbit, and transport them back to Earth. The ground element would be a high-containment facility that would isolate and protect the samples during initial sample characterization, which would include sample safety assessments and time-sensitive scientific investigations. These elements are currently in the planning and design stages of development, and represent an international effort of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and many industry partners. The work presented here provides an overview of the planetary protection strategy of the third flight mission, the ESA-led Earth Return Orbiter, which hosts the NASA-provided Capture, Containment, and Return System. The orbiter would detect and capture the container with up to 30 sealed tubes previously put in Martian orbit, contain them in redundant containers to ensure that no potentially hazardous Mars particles are released, and return them to Earth through an entry vehicle. Both NASA and ESA policies comply with the United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty by planning to protect Earth’s biosphere from any potential adverse effects from material returned from solar system bodies beyond the Earth-Moon system. In the conduct of Mars Sample Return, the two agencies have mutually agreed to apply approaches consistent with their own planetary protection standards to the campaign elements they each provide.

Mars Sample Return↗
NASA NTRS2025

Informing Planetary Protection Policies for the Future Exploration of Ceres: State of Understanding after the Dawn Mission

We review the current state of understanding of Ceres as it relates to planetary protection policy for future landed missions, including for sample return, to the dwarf planet. The Dawn mission found Ceres to be an intriguing target for a mission, with evidence for the presence of regional, possibly extensive liquid at depth, and local expressions of recent and potentially ongoing activity. The Dawn mission also found a high abundance of carbon in the regolith, interpreted as a mix of carbonates and amorphous carbon, as well as locally high concentrations of organic matter. Key findings from this review are as follows: (1) outside of the region of Occator crater, Ceres shows no geological evidence for conduits from the surface to the interior; and (2) considering the biological potential of Ceres’ deep interior, a surface sample return mission should be considered Category V restricted, unless it can be demonstrated that evaporites sourced from Ceres’ deep brine region, and recently exposed in Occator crater, have not been scattered to the rest of Ceres’ surface; in that case, the probability of returning an unsterilized particle to an acceptably low value is to be determined by a future study. Key Words: Ceres—Planetary protection—Brines—Future missions.

Julie Castillo-Rogez↗
NASA NTRS2000

Planetary protection technologies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

This paper presents a summary of the planetary protection technology development efforts currently being conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). This is a multidisciplinary effort involving JPL and NASA expertise in microbiology, material science, and analytical chemistry, in conjunction with outside, industrial academic collaborators.

planetary↗
NASA NTRS1996

Refinement of planetary protection policy for Mars missions

Under existing COSPAR policy adopted in 1984, missions to Mars (landers, probes, and some orbiters) are designated as Category IV missions. As such, the procedures for implementing planetary protection requirements could include trajectory biasing, cleanrooms, bioload reduction, sterilization of hardware, and bioshields. In 1992, a U.S. National Research Council study recommended that controls on forward contamination of Mars be tied to specific mission objectives. The report recommended that Mars landers with life detection instruments be subject to at least Viking-level sterilization procedures for bioload reduction, while spacecraft (including orbiters) without life detection instruments be subject to at least Viking-level pre-sterilization procedures for bioload reduction but need not be sterilized. In light of this, it is proposed that the current policy's Category IV and its planetary protection requirements be divided into two sub-categories as follows: Category IVa, for missions comprising landers and probes without life detection experiments, which will meet a specified bioburden limit for exposed surfaces, and Category IVb, for landers and probes with life detection experiments, which will require sterilization of landed systems. In addition, Category III orbiter mission specifications are expanded to be consistent with these recommendations.

NASA Discipline Exobiology↗
NASA NTRS1994

Revision to Planetary Protection Policy for Mars Missions

Under existing COSPAR policy adopted in 1984, missions to Mars (landers, probes, and some orbiters) are designated as Category IV missions. As such, the procedures for implementing planetary protection requirements could include trajectory biasing, cleanrooms, bioload reduction, sterilization of hardware, and bioshields, i. e. requirements could be similar to Viking. However, in 1992, a U. S. National Academy of Sciences study recommended that controls on forward contamination of Mars be tied to specific mission objectives. The report recommended that Mars landers with life detection instruments be subject to at least Viking-level sterilization procedures for bioload reduction, while spacecraft (including orbiters) without life detection instruments be subject to at least Viking-level pre sterilization procedures for bioload reduction but need not be sterilized. In light of this, it is proposed that the current policy's Category IV missions and their planetary protection requirements be divided into two subcategories as follows: Category IV A, for missions comprising landers and probes without life detection experiments and some orbiters, which will meet a specified bioburden limit for exposed surfaces; Category IV B, for landers and probes with life detection experiments, which will require complete system sterilization. For Category IV A missions, bioburden specifications will be proposed and implementing procedures discussed. A resolution will be proposed to modify the existing COSPAR policy to reflect these changes. Similar specifications, procedures, and resolution for Category IV B missions will be the subject of a later study.

DeVincenzi, D. L.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Treatment of Solid Rocket Motors that Complies with Established Protocols to Ensure Planetary Protection

This presentation discusses recent work being conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to evaluate various methods that could be employed to provide for planetary protection of those solar system bodies that are candidates for extraterrestrial life, thus preventing contamination of such bodies. MSFC is presently involved in the development phase of the Europa Lander De-Orbital Stage (DOS) braking motor. In order to prevent bio-contamination of this Jovian satellite, three paths are currently being considered. The first is (1) Bio-Reduction of those microscopic organisms in or on the vehicle (in this case a solid rocket motor (SRM)) that might otherwise be transported during the mission. Possible methods being investigated include heat sterilization, application or incorporation of biocide materials, and irradiation. While each method can be made to work, effects on the SRM's components (propellant, liner, insulation, etc.) could well prove deleterious. A second path would be use of (2) Bio-Barrier material(s). So long as such barrier(s) can maintain their integrity, planetary protection should be afforded. Under the harsh conditions encountered during extended spaceflight (vacuum, temperature extremes, radiation), however, such barrier(s) could well experience a breach. Finally, a third path would be to perform (3) Pyrotechnic Sterilization of the SRM during its end-of-mission phase. Multiple pyrotechnic units would be triggered to ensure activation of such an event and provide for a final sterilization before vehicle impact. In light of Europa's stringent bio-reduction targets, the final and best choice to minimize risk will probably be some combination of the above.

Stefanski, Philip L.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Electronic Parts and Spacecraft Reliability : Considerations for Planetary Protection

If considered from the beginning of design, its easier to incorporate approaches to meet planetary protection requirements Parts, materials and approaches are available to meet sterilization requirements. Cost impact is highly dependent on: (1) Level of PP requirements imposed, (2) Design (a) New or existing (b) Parts classification (c) Number of sensors (d) Calibration/alignment requirements

design process↗