The White House on Dec. 30 announced a national strategy for planetary protection, outlining new assessments for the prevention and control of terrestrial contamination of other worlds.
The National Planetary Protection Strategy, developed by an interagency working group headed by the National Space Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), outlines the work to be undertaken over the next year to update planetary protection strategies, taking into account all technological advancements and expanded private space exploration capability.
The strategy is intended to incorporate a part of the revised National Space Policy, published on Dec. 9, which calls for OSTP, in collaboration with NASA and other agencies, to establish new recommendations for planetary protection "for the appropriate protection of planetary bodies and the Earth from harmful biological contamination."
The policy for planetary security has three broad objectives. One is to establish "risk assessment and science-based guidelines" to minimize what is known as "forward contamination" or contamination of other worlds by terrestrial life. It also leads to an evaluation of the role of planetary defense in the government's private mission payload analysis process.
The second objective is to avoid "backward contamination" or possible contamination of the Earth by any extraterrestrial life. The policy guides organizations to develop separate risk management mechanisms for sample return missions and other sources of back-to-back contamination, as well as an approval process for certain missions and protocols for proper handling of samples, returned from outside Earth.
The third objective is to incorporate the views of the private sector on planetary security issues, considering the increasing potential and participation of companies in flying missions to other planets, in particular Mars. This goal involves work by the government to establish standards for the authorization and ongoing monitoring of private-sector missions to destinations with planetary security implications.
The policy does not lay out any new measures, but simply details the progress to be undertaken on different topics over the next year.
Planetary protection has historically been a focus concern for NASA. The agency has been working to reform its own planetary protection policies on the basis of the findings made by the independent review board last year. In July, NASA announced the issuance of new provisional guidance to reclassify much of the moon into a lower tier that has no planetary protection criteria, as well as to research how to make planetary protection guidelines compliant with future human missions to Mars.
The plan also aims to draw on the experience of other organizations. The interagency working group comprised many Cabinet-level agencies, from Agriculture and Health and Human Services to Commerce and State. It also included, among others, the Centers for Disease Control, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The planetary protection strategy s is part of an upsurge in space policy activity by the White House in the final weeks of Trump's presidency. In addition to the revised National Space Policy, the White House published a space nuclear plan on Dec. 16 detailing the goals for the production of nuclear power and propulsion capability.
