WASHINGTON – NASA announced on July 9 two new directives on planetary protection for missions to the moon and Mars that implement the recommendations of an independent review board last year.
The two directives, announced by NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine during a “Moon Dialogues” webinar, are part of a NASA effort to modernize the decades-old guidelines that the agency believes could hinder his long-term plans for human exploration.
The directives reflect “how NASA has evolved its thinking regarding harmful biological pollution back and forth on the surface of the moon and, of course, on Mars,” Bridenstine said.
The first of those formally known as NASA Interim Directives revises the moon’s planetary protection rating. The mission to the moon had been in Category 2, which required missions to document any biological material on board but did not establish cleanliness standards for them. That classification was fueled by concern that spacecraft might contaminate water ice at the lunar poles.
Under the new directive, most of the moon will be placed in Category 1, which does not impose mission requirements. Exceptions will be the polar regions, north of 86 degrees north latitude and south of 79 degrees south latitude, which will remain in Category 2. The regions around the Apollo landing “and other historical sites” will also be in Category 2, mainly to protect biological materials left behind by the Apollo manned landings.
“NASA is changing its thinking about how we are going to move toward the moon,” Bridenstine said. “Certain parts of the moon, from a scientific perspective, must protect themselves more than other parts of the moon from direct biological contamination.”
The second directive addresses future human missions to Mars, a planet with much higher planetary protection requirements. Those requirements include setting strict limits on the level of land pollution that many have argued are incompatible with human missions.
“We cannot go to Mars with humans if the principle we live by is that we cannot have any microbial substances with us, because that is simply not possible,” Bridenstine said.
The Mars directive does not change the planetary protection requirements for missions to that planet, but asks for studies on how to do it. Those studies range from research that can be done on the International Space Station to the potential dispatch of a precursor robotic mission to a location near the proposed landing site for the manned mission to measure what organic materials are present.
“NASA will develop risk-based decision-making implementation strategies for human missions to Mars that represent and balance the needs of human space exploration, science, business activities and security,” the directive states.
That effort, Bridenstine said, would be a long-term process that will require more policy changes in the future. “As we learn more, we are going to have to continue making adjustments,” he said.
The two directives implement some of the recommendations of the Independent Planetary Protection Review Board, which released a report last October calling for modernization of planetary protection protocols. Among her recommendations was reclassifying much of the moon from Category 2 to Category 1, as well as for NASA to develop planetary protection guidelines for future missions to Mars.
“Planetary protection has not really had a hidden aspect in a bottom-up assessment in something like 40 years,” Alan Stern, the planetary scientist who chaired that independent review, said in a panel discussion after comments from Bridenstine. “A lot has changed in that time in many areas.”
NASA’s directives apply to the agency’s own missions, as well as those in which the agency participates in some way, such as joint missions with other agencies or trade missions where NASA is a client. However, it does not apply to missions from other space agencies or strictly commercial missions.
“There are interim NASA directives, but what NASA does has tremendous influence on the private sector,” Mike Gold, interim associate administrator for international and inter-agency relations at NASA, argued during the panel discussion. “We have to set the right precedent. the [directives] that we present today will demonstrate a path for the private sector. “
The directives also do not affect the international guidelines for planetary protection maintained by the Space Research Committee (COSPAR). However, when the independent review board report was released last fall, people like COSPAR chairman Len Fisk said they hoped the recommended changes would eventually be accepted by COSPAR.
A space law expert said that approach should suffice. “It is an evolving process,” said Tanja Masson-Zwaan, deputy director of the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University. Countries have been voluntarily implementing these guidelines for decades, he noted, as a means of complying with the Outer Space Treaty requirement to avoid “harmful contamination” of celestial bodies.
He rejected at the round table the idea of a new international organization to oversee planetary protection. “In pragmatic terms, this is not something that will happen, but I don’t think it is necessary either.”
