Planetary protection: Difference between revisions
→COSPAR recommendations and categories
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:: '''Missions to Mars in category IV are subclassified further:'''<ref name="COSPAR PLANETARY PROTECTION POLICY"/>
:*''Category IVa.'' Landers that do not search for Martian life - uses the Viking lander pre-sterilization requirements, a maximum of 300,000 spores per spacecraft and 300 spores per square meter.
:*''Category IVb.'' Landers that search for Martian life. Either the complete lander or the life detection systems must be sterilized to at least to the Viking post-sterilization biological burden levels of 30 spores total per spacecraft. If only the subsystem that acquires and analyses the samples is sterilized in this way, then there needs to be a method to prevent recontamination of the sterilized systems or the samples [an example here might be a drill that can drill down to a potential habitat for present day life]
:*''Category IVc.'' Any component that accesses a Martian ''[[#Mars special regions|special region]]'' where terrestrial organisms are likely to propagate, or interpreted to have a high potential for existence of extamt Martian life forms.<ref name=MarsSpecialRegions2014/> (see [[#Mars special regions |below]]) must be sterilized to at least to the Viking post-sterilization biological burden levels of 30 spores total per spacecraft.
*''Category V:'' This is further divided into unrestricted and restricted sample return.
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