This study will describe how international and national planetary protection policy has been formulated and adopted and identify associated lessons to inform future policy development. The National ...

Mars Sample Return campaign makes use of an armada of hardware to collect Martian soil, rock, and atmospheric specimens for return to Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Now underway is a ...

Formulating policies for planetary protection issues and keeping them up-to-date is the responsibility of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) panel on planetary protection. In an article in ...

As humanity embarks on a new era of space exploration, of establishing permanent human bases on the moon and Mars, sustainability must become the bedrock of our exploration efforts beyond Earth. With ...

Scholars argue that increased interplanetary space exploration requires a novel approach to regulation. Wiener and Hamilton call for COSPAR to update and elaborate the planetary protection policies as ...

Researchers call for strengthening existing planetary protection policies beyond the space surrounding Earth to include requirements for preserving the Lunar and Martian environments. In a new study, ...

As the search for life elsewhere in our solar system intensifies, so does the need to keep space exploration safe and sustainable. Reading time 4 minutes Planetary protection is, more than ever, a ...

HELSINKI — China is on course to launch its Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission in 2028, according to the mission’s lead. Liu Jizhong, chief designer of Tianwen-3, provided an update on the mission ...

As humanity travels back to the Moon in the next few years and potentially Mars in the next decade, how much of a role should planetary protection play regarding the safeguarding of these worlds? This ...

With an increasing number of space missions targeting various celestial bodies, including Mars, Europa, and the Moon, the importance of maintaining the integrity of these environments while protecting ...