Prokaryotic and Fungal Characterization of the Facilities Used to Assemble, Test, and Launch the OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft.

ABSTRACT: To characterize the ATLO (Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations) environment of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, we analyzed 17 aluminum witness foils and two blanks for bacterial, archaeal, fungal, and arthropod DNA. Under NASA's Planetary Protection guidelines, OSIRIS-REx is a Category II outbound, Category V unrestricted sample return mission. As a result, it has no bioburden restrictions. However, the mission does have strict organic contamination requirements to achieve its primary objective of returning pristine carbonaceous asteroid regolith to Earth. Its target, near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu, is likely to contain organic compounds that are biologically available. Therefore, it is useful to understand what organisms were present during ATLO as part of the larger contamination knowled

SUBMITTER: Regberg AB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7676328 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature