{"id":11881,"date":"2020-07-10T16:39:02","date_gmt":"2020-07-10T16:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/?p=11881"},"modified":"2020-07-10T16:39:48","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T16:39:48","slug":"nasa-awards-seti-institute-contract-for-planetary-protection-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/nasa-awards-seti-institute-contract-for-planetary-protection-support\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Awards SETI Institute Contract for Planetary Protection Support"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Amy Baker, SETI Project Manager, instructs proper sampling technique during the 2019 course \u2018Planetary Protection: Policies and Practices\u2019 at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center on May 1, 2019.
Credits: NASA\/Elaine Seasly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA has awarded the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, a contract to support all phases of current and future planetary protection missions to ensure compliance with planetary protection standards.<\/p>\n

The SETI Institute will work with NASA\u2019s Office of Planetary Protection (OPP) to provide technical reviews and recommendations, validate biological cleanliness on flight projects, provide training for NASA and its partners, as well as develop guidelines for implementation of NASA requirements, and disseminate information to stakeholders and the public. The role of OPP is to promote responsible exploration of the solar system by protecting both Earth and mission destinations from biological contamination.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe depth of mission experience and breadth of knowledge on the SETI Institute team will help NASA meet the technical challenges of assuring forward and backward planetary protection on the anticipated path of human exploration from the Moon to Mars,\u201d said Lisa Pratt, NASA\u2019s planetary protection officer at NASA Headquarters in Washington.<\/p>\n

Planetary protection preserves environments, as well as the science, ensuring verifiable scientific exploration for extraterrestrial life. Some of the upcoming NASA science missions that will be supported by this contract include the Mars 2020 and Europa Clipper missions, and preparations for NASA\u2019s Mars Sample Return mission. In addition, future human spaceflight exploration under NASA\u2019s\u00a0Artemis<\/a>\u00a0program, such as the Gateway lunar orbital outpost, the Human Lander System, and Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, will be supported under this contract, as part of America\u2019s\u00a0Moon to Mars<\/a>\u00a0exploration approach.<\/p>\n

The contract is a fixed-price indefinite-delivery\/indefinite-quantity contract with a maximum award value of $4.7 million over a five-year period that began July 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we return to the Moon, look for evidence of past or present life on Mars and continue our missions of exploration and discovery in the solar system, planetary protection becomes an increasingly important component of mission planning and execution,\u201d said Bill Diamond, president and chief executive officer of the SETI Institute. \u201cWe are proud to be NASA\u2019s partner for this mission-critical function, protecting Earth from backward contamination, and helping ensure that the life we may find on other worlds, didn\u2019t come from our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA and the SETI Institute have worked together on planetary protection for more than a decade and have developed a strong relationship and core competency in this area. SETI Institute scientists have extensive experience in understanding microbial life and how it can affect missions, even in the extreme conditions of spaceflight and extraterrestrial environments. The SETI Institute also has been deeply involved on science teams for many NASA missions, including the\u00a0Hubble Space Telescope<\/a>,\u00a0Curiosity<\/a>,\u00a0New Horizons<\/a>,\u00a0OSIRIS-REx<\/a>,\u00a0Kepler<\/a>, and others.<\/p>\n

Implementing effective and consistent planetary protection standards are more important than ever, as we increasingly venture into space, not only on missions governed by space agencies, but with projects run in conjunction with, and even wholly by, the commercial sector.<\/p>\n

For more information about NASA\u2019s Office of Planetary Protection, visit:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/go.nasa.gov\/2ZblwYE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

The above is NASA Press Release 20-071<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA has awarded the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, a contract to support all phases of current and future planetary protection missions to ensure compliance with planetary protection standards. The SETI Institute will work with NASA\u2019s Office of Planetary Protection (OPP) to provide technical reviews and recommendations, validate biological cleanliness on flight projects, provide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19],"tags":[72,1571],"class_list":{"0":"post-11881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"category-space","9":"tag-nasa","10":"tag-seti-institute"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/7-10-2020-9-37-36-AM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}