Planetary Protection Considerations for Missions to Solar System Small Bodies: Report Series—Committee on Planetary Protection (2023)
Chapter: Appendix B: COSPAR Planetary Protection Requirements for Category I and Category II Missions
B
COSPAR Planetary Protection Requirements for Category I and Category II Missions
These categorizations are taken from COSPAR’s Planetary Protection Policy.1
Category I includes any mission to a target body which is not of direct interest for understanding the process of chemical evolution or the origin of life. No protection of such bodies is warranted and no planetary protection requirements are imposed by this policy.
Category II missions comprise all types of missions to those target bodies where there is significant interest relative to the process of chemical evolution and the origin of life, but where there is only a remote chance that contamination carried by a spacecraft could compromise future investigations. The requirements are for simple documentation only. Preparation of a short planetary protection plan is required for these flight projects primarily to outline intended or potential impact targets, brief Pre- and Post-launch analyses detailing impact strategies, and a Post-encounter and End-of-Mission Report which will provide the location of impact if such an event occurs. Solar system bodies considered to be classified as Category II are listed in the Appendix to this document.
Category-specific listing of target body/mission types:
Category I: Flyby, Orbiter, Lander: Undifferentiated, metamorphosed asteroids; Io; others to be defined (TBD)
Category II: Flyby, Orbiter, Lander: Venus; Moon (with organic inventory); Comets; Carbonaceous Chondrite Asteroids; Jupiter; Saturn; Uranus; Neptune; Ganymede*; Callisto; Titan*; Triton*; Pluto/Charon*; Ceres; Kuiper Belt objects > half the size of Pluto*; Kuiper Belt objects < half the size of Pluto; others TBD
* The mission-specific assignment of these bodies to Category II must be supported by an analysis of the “remote” potential for contamination of the liquid-water environments that may exist beneath their surfaces (a probability of introducing a single viable terrestrial organism of < 1 × 10−4), addressing both the existence of such environments and the prospects of accessing them.
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1 “COSPAR Policy on Planetary Protection,” prepared by the COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection and approved by the COSPAR Bureau on June 3, 2021, https://cosparhq.cnes.fr/assets/uploads/2021/07/PPPolicy_2021_3-June.pdf.
