PLANETARY PROTECTION AT ESA: FUTURE PLANS AND CONSIDERATIONS

Kurzfassung

The ESA Agenda 2025 and Terrae Novae vision, articulate ambitious space exploration plans for the next three years and beyond aiming to increase European autonomy and leadership in space. These plans include the search for extraterrestrial life, returning samples from Mars, the unprecedented desire for a stable European presence on the Moon’s surface and crewed missions to Mars. The complexity of such missions calls for a modernization of current planetary protection methods and capabilities, and reassessments of ESA standards. This work describes the strategy and plans put forward by the ESA and extended stakeholders to trigger improvements on planetary protection implementation practices and standards, with the final goal to complement current prescriptive approaches with transparent risk-informed decision making, and probabilistic frameworks. A multidisciplinary effort, with all international stakeholders involved in the process and leadership from COSPAR planetary protection panel is considered key to succeed and reach international consensus.