A ground support biobarrier (gsb) for recontamination prevention

Publication date: Available online 6 February 2019Source: Life Sciences in Space ResearchAuthor(s): Nikunj Patel, Zachary Dean, Yuki Salinas, Lori Shiraishi, Laura NewlinAbstractPlanetary Protection organizations at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and other space agencies around the world are charged with protecting icy moons and Mars Special Regions, areas that carry an increased potential for life, from Earth biological contamination. During the spacecraft assembly process subsystems undergo functional testing, a task that verifies critical components can survive from launch through the duration of the mission. Despite efforts to keep spacecraft clean during these ground testing operations, as well as during transportation, recontamination frequently occurs and results in the need to re-clean the spacecraft, putting stress on the spacecraft assembly critical path. In response, the Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group (BPPG) at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has designed a ground support biobarrier (GSB) capable of protecting flight hardware continuously from an up-to 150°C Heat Microbial Reduction (HMR) sterilization through hardware integration with the spacecraft, itself. The biobarrier consists of aluminum brackets bolted together and covered with thin aluminum sheets sealed via epoxy. The base plate of the biobarrier contains bolt connections and a gasket to maintain a hermetic seal when the bioba...
Source: Life Sciences in Space Research - Category: Biology Source Type: research