PPP: Panel on Planetary Protection

PPP.1 Planetary Protection

This session will include reports on recent COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection (PPP) activities, planetary protection studies by scientists and agencies, and colloquia/workshops with relevance to planetary protection and in general and the COSPAR Policy and implementation guidelines. The overall Policy perspective will be presented, as well as recent adaptations and updates of the Policy proposed by the PPP and validated by the COSPAR Bureau, as based on documented research and recent findings. Further, this session will cover reports on the planetary protection implementation and status of launched, ongoing and planned missions. Focus will be placed on techniques, measures and procedures applied to spacecrafts, payloads and ground facilities to implement forward and backward planetary protection. The session will also include discussions on lessons learnt from implementing planetary protection guidelines throughout mission and industrial organisations. Finally, this session will include reports on planetary protection research and development activities of all kinds, particularly those involving challenging scientific endeavors, such as life detection and contamination testing. We will encourage presentations of research on new approaches in planetary protection as they apply to both robotic and human missions.