2 research outputs found
Planetary protection: Updates and challenges for a sustainable space exploration
Planetary protection enables scientific return from solar system bodies investigations and at the same time protects life on Earth. As we continue to explore our solar system by landing machines and humans on other planets, we need to ascertain that we do not bring potentially dangerous material home to Earth or carry anything from Earth that may contaminate another planetary body and prevent scientific investigations.
A Planetary Protection Policy has been developed by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), which provides a forum for international consultation in the area of space research. The COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy, and its associated requirements, is not legally binding under international law but is an agreed standard with implementation guidelines for compliance with Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty. States Parties to the Outer Space Treaty are responsible for national space activities under Article VI, including the activities of governmental and non-governmental entities.
The current members of the COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection are representatives from national space agencies and thematic experts from the science community of different countries (https://cosparhq.cnes.fr/scientific-structure/ppp). Other stakeholders, including the private sector, are invited to attend and present at the PPP meetings.
The COSPAR PPP maintains and updates the COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy regularly, always reviewing all available scientific knowledge leading to updates to the policy, in particular as concerns the outer solar system and lunar exploration. Such updates are performed in a careful and balanced way to ensure that the right measures are envisaged to fulfil the rationales for planetary protection
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COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy: recent advances
Planetary protection is a set of measures agreed upon at an international level to ensure the protection of scientific investigation during space exploration. In this framework, the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) provides the international standard for planetary protection as well as a forum for international consultation. COSPAR has formulated a Planetary Protection Policy with associated requirements for responsible space exploration. Although not legally binding under international law, the standard offered by the Policy is internationally endorsed along with implementation guidelines supplied for reference in support States' compliance with Article IX of the UN Outer Space Treaty. Indeed, States parties to the Outer Space Treaty (under Article VI) are responsible for any space activities in their countries, governmental and non-governmental. The main goal of this Policy is to avoid compromising the search for any lifeforms on other celestial bodies and to protect the Earth from a potential threat posed by extraterrestrial samples returned by an inter-planetary mission. The COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy has defined five categories, depending on the target and objective of the specific space mission, and requirements with various degrees of rigor in the contamination control applied. The Policy is assessed regularly and updated with new scientific findings and in conjunction with the fast-evolving space exploration milieu. The COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection (PPP) is a designated international committee composed of scientists, agency representatives and space experts. Its role is to support and revise the COSPAR Policy and its related requirements (https://cosparhq.cnes.fr/scientific-structure/panels/panel-on-planetary-protection-ppp/). The Panel's activities deal with the individual needs of a space mission while exercising swift care and expertise to ensure sustainable exploration of the Solar System. In this paper we present recent considerations on the Venus and small bodies requirements, as well as advances and updates of the Policy as concerns the Moon, Mars and icy satellites (see References)