Issues in planetary protection: policy, protocol and implementation

Planetary protection is NASA's term for the practice of protecting solar system bodies from Earth life while protecting Earth from life that may be brought back from other solar system bodies. Spacefaring nations will soon begin retrieving samples from Mars and other solar system bodies. For these samples, planetary protection is in order, and measures are already in place to prevent the forward contamination of Mars and other bodies by Earth microbes and the backward contamination of Earth by possible extraterrestrial life. A major goal of planetary protection controls on forward contamination is to preserve the planetary record of natural processes by preventing human-caused microbial introductions. Keywords: Astrobiology; Planetary protection; Sample return; Solar system exploration; Space science