Mars 96 landers planetary protection implementation and planetary protection specifications for the upcoming ESA planetary missions Original Research Article

According to the article IX of the OUTER SPACE TREATY (London / Washington January 27., 1967), extraterrestrial missions should be conducted in a manner that protects the planets and the Earth from contamination. Consequently, COSPAR (Committee of Space Research) has established Planetary Protection recommendations1 which are taken into account by all project teams involved in solar system exploration missions. The Mars 96 mission was launched in November 1996. Unfortunately, the mission failed a few hours after launch. Nevertheless, all tasks concerning Planetary Protection were accomplished before the launch of the spacecraft. Taking into account this experience, similar specifications have been developed by CNES for the Mars Express mission in which the anticipated involvement of CNES is the construction of small landers named Netlanders. Exobiological experiments are not foreseen at this time. It must be added that NASA and CNES are presently studying a common Mars sample return mission for 2005. In addition to the sample return module, CNES may also provide Netlanders with exobiological experiments. A final decision about this cooperation will be reached early in 1999. A brief status of Rosetta mission will also be included. For this mission, the DLR (Deutsches Gesellschaft für Luft und Raumfahrt) provides a cometary lander including experiments and lander subsystems provided by CNES.