Mars Sample Receiving Facility and sample containment: Difference between revisions
Mars Sample Receiving Facility and sample containment (edit)
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{{quotation|The risks of [[Environmental degradation|environmental disruption]] resulting from the inadvertent contamination of Earth with putative martian microbes are still considered to be low. But since the risk cannot be demonstrated to be zero, due care and caution must be exercised in handling any martian materials returned to Earth.<ref name=nrc2009_4p46>
{{cite report |title=Assessment of Planetary Protection Requirements for Mars Sample Return Missions |publisher=National Research Council |year=2009|url=http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12576&page=46}}</ref>}}
To deal with these issues, these reports recommend construction of a special a Mars Receiving Facility<ref name=MSRtaskgroup>[http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/summary/msr Mars Sample Return: Issues and Recommendations (Planetary Protection Office Summary)] Task Group on Issues in Sample Return. National Academies Press, Washington, DC (1997)</ref>.
To deal with these issues, the [[NASA]] Office of Planetary Protection<ref>[http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/about NASA Office of Planetary Protection]</ref> recommends construction of a special a Mars Receiving Facility. They recommend that the facility should be operational at least two years prior to launch,<ref name=MSRtaskgroup>[http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/summary/msr Mars Sample Return: Issues and Recommendations (Planetary Protection Office Summary)] Task Group on Issues in Sample Return. National Academies Press, Washington, DC (1997)</ref> with various estimates on the time taken to build the facility and bring it to operational readiness. Preliminary studies have warned that it may take as many as 7 to 10 years to get it operational.<ref>{{cite report |title=Assessment of Planetary Protection Requirements for Mars Sample Return Missions |publisher=National Research Council |year=2009 |chapter=7 "Sample-Receiving Facility and Program Oversight" |page=59 |url=http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id{{=}}12576&page{{=}}59 |quote=''It has been estimated that the planning, design, site selection, environmental reviews, approvals, construction, commissioning, and pre-testing of a proposed SRF will occur 7 to 10 years before actual operations begin.17,18,19 In addition, 5 to 6 years will likely be required for refinement and maturation of SRF-associated technologies for safely containing and handling samples to avoid contamination and to further develop and refine biohazard-test protocols. Many of the capabilities and technologies will either be entirely new or will be required to meet the unusual challenges of integration into an overall (end-to-end) Mars sample return program.''}}</ref>▼
The 1997 NRC report recommended that the facility should be operational at least two years prior to launch, as a result of many lapses of containment in the Apollo sample handling procedures <ref>page [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SE1qAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31 31] of Board, S.S. and National Research Council, 1997. Mars sample return: issues and recommendations. National Academies Press.</ref> Later sample return studies don't explicitly give this requirement but the rationale still applies.
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The official reports stress the need for public debate at the international level due to the ethical issues involved.
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</ref>
As a result, they recommended a minimum size of 0.01 µm on the basis that this is nearly half the size of the smallest GTAs known and less than a tenth of the size of the smallest currently known free-living self-replicating microorganisms. They recommend that the probability of release of a particle this large should be less than 1 in a million.
In the case where 0.01 µm can't be achieved at a reasonable cost, and in view of the almost negligible risks from GTAs, they give 0.05 µm as a maximum permitted minimum size.
This size was chosen as less than half that of the smallest currently known micro-organisms - so unlikely to contain a free-living microorganism. They recommend that such an increase of the minimum size requirement requires independent review by a panel of experts.<ref>Quotes from the ESF report to assist editors in verifying the paraphrase
{{bq|Unsterilised particles smaller than 0.01 µm would be unlikely to contain any organisms, whether free-living self-replicating (the smallest free-living self-replicating microorganisms observed are in the range of 0.12–0,2 µm, i.e. more than one order of magnitude larger), GTA-type (the smallest GTA observed is 0,03 µm, i.e. three times larger) or virus-type (the smallest GTA observed is 0,017 µm, i.e. almost twice as large). This level should be considered as the bottom line basic requirement when designing the mission systems and operation.}}
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The ESF report also points out that biohazard facilities are designed to contain known hazards. The new facility must contain unknown hazards as well. It's a much harder problem to contain unknown hazards, especially with the diversity of life forms now known to be potentially hazardous such as GTAs and ultramicrobacteria (as described above).
Other risks mentioned in these studies, and by the Planetary Protection Office include the possibility of human error, accidents, natural disasters, security breach, actions by terrorist or 'activist' groups or crime, leading to release of the materials, once the samples are on the Earth surface.<ref name=esf2012_PP-crime-etc>{{cite report |title=A Draft Test Protocol for Detecting possible biohazards in martian samples returned to Earth|publisher=NASA |year=2002 |quote="Procedures for handling a breach of the SRF due to different causes (e.g. leak, disaster, security breach etc) should be considered in he development of plans for handling a breach. Concerns about security should also be reconsidered, epecially in view of the potential disruptive activities of any terrorist or 'radical' groups that may be opposed to sample return (page 101) .... The breach could be the result of an accident or a crime - as a result of activity either outside or within containment (page 104)"|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130215100651/http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/file_download/10/MSRDraftTestProtocol.pdf}}</ref>
==== Target probabilities for proposed biohazard facilities ====
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====Risk mitigation for the MSR receiving facilities====
[[File:Mars_sample_return_quote.png|thumb|
To deal with the issues of unknown possibly very small forms of life in the sample, the ESF referred to their discussion of size limits (above) and concluded (Recommendation 7) that if possible, the facilities should be designed so that probability should be less than one in a million that a single unsterilised particle of 0.01 µm diameter or greater, if possible, and if that's not possible, that
{{bq|>The
[if this requirement is too stringent then it needs expert review]
The release of a single unsterilised particle larger than 0.05 µm is not acceptable under any circumstance
<ref name=esf2010_LAWKI/>}}
To deal with issues of the novelty of the facilities and of human error, the studies recommended that the receiving facility is operational and the staff trained several years before the Mars samples are brought into Earth's environment. The 2008 report of the IMARS working group report detailed a total of twelve years from initial planning to lander launch.<ref name=imars>[http://mepag.nasa.gov/reports/iMARS_FinalReport.pdf Preliminary Planning for an International Mars Sample Return Mission] Report of the International Mars Architecture for the Return of Samples (iMARS) Working Group, June 1, 2008</ref> Three architectural firms were approached who provided preliminary plans, the FLAD, IDC and LAS plans, the last of these, the LAS has a fully robotic work force to handle the samples.<ref>Jeremy Hsu [http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/3329/keeping-mars-contained Keeping Mars Contained] Astrobiology Magazine 12/03/09</ref><ref>Beaty DW, Allen CC, Bass DS, Buxbaum KL, Campbell JK, Lindstrom DJ, Miller SL, Papanastassiou DA. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19845446?report=abstract Planning considerations for a Mars Sample Receiving Facility: summary and interpretation of three design studies.] Astrobiology. 2009 Oct;9(8):745-58. doi: 10.1089/ast.2009.0339.</ref><ref>[http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5563&page=31 Mars Sample Return: Issues and Recommendations](1997)] Task Group on Issues in Sample Return, National Research Council (page 31)</ref>
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Other proposals were explored in the 1980s, including direct entry of sample container to Earth's atmosphere, recovery by the space shuttle, recovery to space station, recovery to a dedicated Antaeus space station, and several intermediate proposals.<ref>[http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/02/mars-sample-recovery-quarantine-1985/ Mars Sample Recovery & Quarantine (1985)] DAVID S. F. PORTREE 02.14.13</ref>
Originally through to 2002, the requirement was a simple gas-tight glove box in a biocontainment level 4 facility. <ref>
Board, S.S. and National Research Council, 2002. [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vzmcAgAAQBAJ The Quarantine and Certification of Martian Samples[. National Academies Press.
{{quote|"The initial processing of returned martian samples should be restricted to a BSL-4 laboratory in the quarantine facility. A very modest gas-tight glove box (Class III cabinet) in a "clean room" (class 10; however see following g section) will be sufficient for this purpose. " page 51}}</ref>
==See also==
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