As part of planning for future space exploration, COSPAR (The Committee on Space Research) together with participating space agencies, is organizing an interdisciplinary meeting to consider next steps in addressing knowledge gaps for planetary protection of future human missions to Mars. Planetary protection is the discipline of preventing harmful contamination of outer space and protecting the Earth from potential hazards posed by extra-terrestrial material on a spacecraft returning from an interplanetary mission. The next meeting in the Planetary Protection Knowledge Gaps for Human Missions to Mars series will be held virtually on June 1-2, 2022 from 9:30-3:00 EDT each day. The meeting will focus on closure of knowledge gaps in the areas of quarantine and sample containment. Reports from earlier workshops are posted under Conference Documents at this link:

https://sma.nasa.gov/sma-disciplines/planetary-protection/

Please RSVP to valerie.a.chabot@nasa.gov and to bette.siegel@nasa.gov by May 2, 2022.