Amendment 31: C.15 PPRP not solicited this year

ROSES-18 Amendment 31: Planetary Protection Research program element C.15 of ROSES-2018, will not be solicited this year.

Planetary protection involves preventing biological contamination on both outbound and sample return missions to other planetary bodies. Research is required to improve NASA's understanding of the potential for survival of Earth microbes in extraterrestrial environments, relevant to preventing both forward contamination of other bodies by organisms carried on spacecraft and backward contamination, how to minimize it, and to set standards in these areas for spacecraft preparation and operating procedures. Improvements in technologies and methods for evaluating the potential for life in returned samples are also of interest.

Because of the delayed schedule for review of proposals to PPR-2017 and in order to give the new program manager time to convene the multi-Directorate coordination group to get input on Agency planetary protection needs, NASA has decided to solicit PPRP early in ROSES-2019 rather than in ROSES-2018.

Questions concerning this program element may be directed to Becky McCauley Rench via email at: rebecca.l.mccauleyrench@nasa.gov.