Tools for Assessing Planetary Protection Implementation Strategies

When spacecraft go to Mars, Europa, Enceladus or other solar system bodies which might be of interest relative to the process of chemical evolution and/or the origin of life, measures will be employed to ensure the missions meet strict biological contamination requirements. These measures, generically referred to as "planetary protection" (PP) are designed to preserve our ability to study other worlds as they exist in their natural states and help ensure that the scientific investigations (or the interpretation of scientific measurements) aren't confounded by Earth life that might have been inadvertently transferred to the body of interest. To be implemented most effectively, PP strategies should be fully integrated with the mission's schedule and cost profile, but in the early mission design stages the number of open options can make it difficult to perform planetary protection trade studies. This issue is being addressed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) with the development of design tools that will permit the assessment of both the effectiveness and cost of alternative PP approaches in the mission design process. By applying these tools during the mission design process, project designers and program managers will be able to adopt the PP approach best suited to the mission architecture as well as estimate its cost in terms of dollars, schedule impact, and biological contamination risk.