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The SETI Institute is known mostly for its work in trying to find evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, but they also work to protect the solar system from microscopic stowaways on NASA missions. And NASA has now awarded the Institute a contract to make sure the agency's current and future missions comply with planetary protection standards.
The SETI Institute has been working in this area for over a decade, and the new contract guarantees a close collaboration with NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection. The Institute will ensure that missions to locations where life might exist do not carry unwanted passengers with them. This is also the case for the Mars Sample Return mission, where they will make sure anything that is possibly living on Mars will not contaminate Earth.
SETI will provide technical reviews, cleanliness standards, as well as training for NASA and the private companies working with the agencies in upcoming missions. These include Mars 2020, which will launch in a few weeks, and the Europa Clipper mission that will visit the Jovian moon in the early 2030s. The Institute will also provide best practices for crewed missions to the Moon in the Artemis program, as well as the future human exploration of Mars.
“As we return to the Moon, look for evidence of past or present life on Mars and continue our missions of exploration and discovery in the Solar System, Planetary Protection becomes an increasingly important component of mission planning and execution,” Bill Diamond, president and CEO of the SETI Institute, said in a statement. “We are proud to be NASA’s partner for this mission-critical function, protecting Earth from backward contamination, and helping ensure that the life we may find on other worlds, didn’t come from our own.”
Planetary protection is a complex endeavor. First of all, the planets and moons of the solar system exchange material over time due to asteroid collisions. We don’t know if life can hitch a ride on these rocks but it is certainly a possibility. What we need to do is make sure we do not add microbes when we visit these worlds on our missions.
