5

Current and Future Instrumentation and Investments for Extraterrestrial Sample Analysis

This chapter first reviews current NASA funding programs and then assesses what capabilities or opportunities are or will be needed for analyses of returned samples. This encompasses curation facilities, sample distribution, funding of instrumentation, training and support of personnel, developing new methods for handling and analyzing challenging samples, and leveraging other U.S. facilities and international collaborations.

5.1 OVERVIEW OF NASA FUNDING PROGRAMS RELEVANT TO RETURNED SAMPLE ANALYSIS

Currently, instrumentation for analyses of extraterrestrial materials is funded through two NASA programs: Laboratory Analysis of Returned Samples (LARS) and Planetary Major Equipment and Facilities (PMEF).

A primary goal of the LARS program is to maximize the science derived from planetary sample return missions. This is encompassed by two categories: “(1) development of laboratory instrumentation and/or advanced techniques required for the analysis of returned samples; (2) direct analysis of samples already returned to Earth.”¹ However, LARS specifically excludes analysis of lunar samples returned by the Apollo and Luna programs, terrestrial collections (meteorites, cosmic dust), and space-exposed hardware. It also does not support development of instruments to fly on planetary missions; these are normally funded through the mission proposals or specific programs for spacecraft instrumentation (PICASSO and MatISSE). Last, LARS does not support service contracts for established instruments, or technical support to run and maintain them. In 2018, the LARS program expected to fund approximately 10 awards with a total of approximately $2.6 million.

The scope of the PMEF program² allows proposals for the purchase or development of new or upgraded nonflight analytical, computational, telescopic, and other instrumentation with hardware costs over $50,000 to be used in investigations in Planetary Science Division (PSD) research programs. Two types of PMEF instruments can be proposed: (1) investigator instruments (instruments “acquired or developed by the proposer to support the principal investigator’s (PI’s) research, where the PI has full authority for its exclusive use, and where there are no commitments to make the instrument available to other investigators”),³ and (2) facility instruments (a signifi-

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¹ NASA, Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES), 2018, http://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2018 (referred to hereafter as ROSES-18), p. C.18-1.

² ROSES-18, p. C.17-1. Note: Until March 2018, PMEF allowed a third category of proposals, regional facility instruments—similar to an investigator instrument, but this instrument was of considerable cost or was limited to a particular location by virtue of its use in a specific facility.

³ ROSES-18, p. C.17-2.

cant fraction of instrument time will be made available to other researchers in planetary science). The individual investigator instruments can be proposed as an addendum to research proposals, whereas the facility instruments are stand-alone only proposals to the PMEF program. This program does not support repairs of existing instrumentation, funding for technical support staff, or service contracts. In 2018, the annual expected budget for the PMEF program is approximately $2 million, with the expected number of awards being between five and nine. Cost sharing with other federal agencies is encouraged.

Additional grant programs that may support analysis of extraterrestrial samples are Emerging Worlds (EW) and Solar System Workings (SSW) and to a lesser degree, Exobiology.⁴ These programs provide the only NASA-funded opportunities to propose the analysis of meteorites and lunar samples. EW aims to explore the formation of the solar system and its early evolution. Major interdisciplinary efforts to solve key questions are particularly valued. SSW is a broad program that “supports research into atmospheric, climatological, dynamical, geologic, geophysical, and geochemical processes occurring on planetary bodies, satellites, and other minor bodies (including rings) in the solar system. This call seeks proposals to address the physical and chemical processes that affect the surfaces, interiors, atmospheres, exospheres, and magnetospheres of planetary bodies.”⁵ The goal of the Exobiology program “is to understand the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Research is centered on the origin and early evolution of life, the potential of life to adapt to different environments, and the implications for life elsewhere.”⁶

The Lunar Data Analysis Program supports scientific investigations of the Moon using publicly available (released) mission data from orbital lunar missions, both U.S. and international. While this program does not preclude sample analyses, these are discouraged unless they enhance the analysis and understanding of the data from more recent (i.e., Lunar Prospector or younger) missions. For example, analysis of samples to understand reflectance spectra can be proposed, but detailed geochemical studies focused only on samples cannot.

When founded, the precursors to the LARS program were funded by the Discovery Program to support analyses of soon-to-be-returned Genesis and Stardust samples. As such, lunar samples, despite being returned by missions, were not included. As LARS has evolved, its focus on Discovery missions has diminished and older sample sets are supplanted in priority for funding by newer samples. Nonetheless, lunar samples make up the majority of the current collection of returned extraterrestrial samples. Further, new studies have revealed records of volatile abundances in the lunar interior that have challenged long-held paradigms about a dry Moon. While these efforts have been funded by NASA’s core programs, the exclusion of lunar samples from LARS limits the ability to develop laboratory instruments specifically to address these new hypotheses. At the time of the Apollo program, there was explosive growth in laboratory instrumentation that was then state-of-the-art (e.g., electron microprobes and thermal ionization mass spectrometers), but now the only program that funds the development of laboratory instrumentation specifically for lunar samples is the PMEF, in competition with all other nonflight instrumentation for planetary science. In addition, the most recent decadal survey prioritizes a lunar sample return program (see Section 3.3.4). The recent change in the U.S. space policy that directs NASA to return humans to the Moon⁷ has resulted in a new lunar emphasis in the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD)—for example, the Lunar Exploration and Discovery Program—and the PSD research programs—for example, the Development and Advancement of Lunar Instrumentation program. In 2018, PSD issued a special call for proposals for the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program that focused on specially curated lunar samples (unopened vacuum-sealed, frozen, or stored in helium). This solicitation funded sample analysis research, but instrumentation funding is available only via the PMEF.⁸ Although originally considered as a one-time solicitation, it may be competed again in the future to look at novel ways to investigate the current Apollo samples (e.g., new analyses of large regolith samples, new clasts in breccias identified through CT scans). Note that this would not be a general call

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⁴ NASA Planetary Science research programs were reorganized in 2013, and the new programs were first funded in 2015. Previous relevant programs include Cosmochemistry and Planetary Geology and Geophysics.

⁵ ROSES-18, p. C.3-1.

⁶ ROSES-18, p. C.5-1.

⁷ Presidential Memorandum on Reinvigorating America’s Human Space Exploration Program, issued December 11, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-memorandum-reinvigorating-americas-human-space-exploration-program/.

⁸ ROSES-18, p. C.24-4.

for the analysis of Apollo samples. Therefore, the current exclusion of lunar samples from LARS is inconsistent with NASA’s objective of maximizing scientific return from returned samples, irrespective of when those samples were returned. However, if LARS is opened to lunar sample analyses and funding remains constant, the resources available for analyses of other types of returned samples will be diminished.

Conclusion: The very broad nature of the SSW program, the very specific requirements of the EW program, and the exclusion of lunar sample analyses from the LARS program place limitations on sample-based research, particularly from the Moon and the terrestrial meteorite collections.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should consider opening the Laboratory Analysis of Returned Samples grant program to all mission-returned extraterrestrial samples.

5.2 CURRENT NASA PLANETARY SCIENCE INVESTMENTS

This section lays out the current NASA PSD investment strategy for instrumentation, workforce development, and curation. Section 5.3 discusses future needs in these three areas.

5.2.1 Instrumentation

The capability to purchase or build new instrumentation and to repair, upgrade, and replace existing instrumentation (which may, in some cases, necessitate service contracts from equipment manufacturers) is central to maintaining the laboratories needed to analyze returned samples. The current investment strategy of NASA has been to support purchases and upgrades of equipment by individual investigators through the LARS or PMEF programs, as described in Section 5.1. A significant proportion of the equipment purchased appears to be cost-shared with other funding agencies (e.g., the National Science Foundation [NSF]) or institutions (e.g., universities or private foundations), thus leveraging NASA funding.

There is an overall downward trend in the success rate of PMEF proposals funded by NASA (see Figure 5.1); success rates hovered around 30 percent prior to 2011 (with the exception of 2010, which had an anomalously low success rate of about 16 percent, because a smaller number of more expensive proposals were funded) and have decreased to less than 20 percent since 2014. This is over a period when the total awards for the program averaged around $2 million per year, not adjusted for inflation, which means that absolute funding decreased. From these data, one can surmise that the demand for funding of major equipment has increased over the past 10 years. By contrast, the total amount spent on major equipment in LARS and PMEF, as well as the subset spent on equipment specifically for sample analysis, while variable from year to year, decreased significantly since 2008 (see Figure 5.2, also not adjusted for inflation). Collectively, these data suggest that there is an increasingly greater demand for purchase and upgrading of analytical equipment used for extraterrestrial sample analysis than can be met by current funding levels. In addition, the number of available extraterrestrial samples is increasing. New meteorites are returned each year through NASA-funded fieldwork in Antarctica (as well as new meteorites from other locations becoming available), two sample return missions are currently in flight, new sample return missions are either in early stages of approval or are being studied, and there has been renewed interest in the Apollo and Luna samples since the change in national space policy through Space Policy Directive 1.⁹

Further, laboratory instrumentation has a limited functional lifetime (typical university depreciation rates have an average life span of 10 years), with an even shorter period to obsolescence for state-of-the-art technology. Common instrumentation such as a field emission electron microprobe currently costs approximately $1.5 million to $1.7 million, while the PMEF program has had annual expenditures in the range of approximately $1 million to $3 million over the last decade. Even assuming a generous 50 percent cost share from a source outside NASA, the current budget allows for replacement of only one to four instruments annually. With an average functional life-

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⁹ Presidential Memorandum on Reinvigorating America’s Human Space Exploration Program, issued December 11, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-memorandum-reinvigorating-americas-human-space-exploration-program/.

time of approximately 15-20 years for most instrumentation (i.e., longer than average depreciation lifetimes), this budget would replace approximately 50 instruments in two decades. These estimates are consistent with NASA’s investment through LARS and PMEF totaling approximately $17 million in the period 2011-2018. This limited replacement schedule is exacerbated by the fact that even for existing technology, the analytical instrumentation available in laboratories today will not be the instruments that analyze samples of currently proposed or considered sample return missions.

Recognizing that future funding for analytical instrumentation is uncertain, the committee considered the impact of flat or decreased funding (the current situation), a modest funding increase, and large increased funding. Each of these scenarios is described below.

If funding for instrumentation continues to remain flat or decreases, as is currently the case, it will not be possible to fund both replacement of existing capacity and development of new capabilities. This will necessitate a reduction in the overall number of analytical laboratories supported by NASA, particularly through the PMEF and LARS programs. The reduction in capacity of existing instrumentation could be mitigated by preferentially funding regional or national facilities that commit a portion of available time to outside users, such as through an open call judged by a panel of internal and external experts. While this requirement could be levied on future proposals, it could also be applied to existing facilities, including NASA centers that receive ongoing support for analytical instrumentation for sample analyses. However, the committee notes that the record of major breakthroughs developing novel analytical instrumentation, advances in using existing instrumentation, and major discoveries derived from using these instruments is strongly biased toward principal investigator (PI)-led research in university settings, or in privately funded research laboratories.¹⁰ Purchase of analytical instrumentation via leveraging with other funding agencies (e.g., NSF, the Department of Energy), via private foundations, or via matching funds from the hosting institution could also be favored, as these matching funds leverage NASA’s investment.

If modest increased funding is implemented, the choice between reducing current capacity and not developing new capabilities would be mitigated to some extent. Implementation of some shared facilities and continued encouragement of leveraged purchases would still be warranted. Further, analyses of reactive and cryogenic materials (e.g., ices, gases, and certain organic compounds) might still prove challenging without significant influx of new funds on an as-needed basis corresponding to specific sample return missions.

Significant funding increases not only provide for replacement of existing capacity and development of new capabilities but also would spur innovation, provide stability for both instrument purchase and technical support, and provide funding for long-term planning for both curation and analytical instrumentation for new types of samples. Note that having multiple laboratories analyze the same sample is important for evaluating the credibility of the data produced. With return of soft condensed matter samples (e.g., organic-rich materials, ices, gases), this could be challenging, but now is the time to be establishing such analytical protocols.

Finding: A funding strategy for instrumentation for returned sample analysis will need to consider several competing demands, including maintaining and replacing existing capabilities, specifically those required for science goals of ongoing missions; advancing innovative and inventive technologies that will maximize science returns from mission-returned samples; curatorial facilities tailored to mission needs; technologies used in the study of the products of past sample return missions and relevant meteoritic, terrestrial, and experimental materials; and continuity of support for personnel with mission-critical curatorial and analytical skills.

Finding: As currently formulated, NASA’s investment in analytical instrumentation is inadequate to provide for replacement of existing instruments, so the analytical base for extraterrestrial samples is diminishing. Addition of new technological innovations further stretch the current funding programs.

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¹⁰ Historical examples include Clair Patterson’s determination at Caltech of the age of meteorites and Earth at 4.55 Ga; discovery of presolar grains by Edward Anders at the University of Chicago; discovery of the evidence for extinct radionuclides of iodine by John Reynolds at the University of California, Berkeley, and of aluminum in Gerald Wasserburg’s laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

Finding: Many scientists engaged in analyses of extraterrestrial materials utilize multiuser facilities for sample characterization that are funded through a variety of sources.

Conclusion: The ability to analyze extraterrestrial materials has benefited tremendously from leveraging of NASA funds with contributions from other funding agencies or institutions.

Conclusion: While multiuser facilities can provide increased access to common instrumentation for many investigators, innovations and breakthroughs have historically occurred at individual principal investigator laboratories.

Conclusion: In the event of flat or decreased funding, there will be significant challenges in developing new analytical instrumentation, particularly as the number and types of returned samples (e.g., gases, ices, organic materials) increase with new missions.

Conclusion: If future instrument funding decisions must be made under the constraint of flat or decreasing overall funding levels, then the several competing demands of sample return science will likely exceed available resources, necessitating a focus on a few highest-priority needs.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should continue to engage in and encourage cost-sharing arrangements for laboratory analytical equipment with other funding sources.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should continue to invest in both multiuser facilities and individual principal investigator laboratories.

5.2.2 Technical Staff

Developing, maintaining and operating high-tech instrumentation requires highly skilled technical staff. The staff of a laboratory frequently includes the PI for the laboratory instruments, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, and, in some instances, technical support staff. PIs who are full- or part-time faculty are generally paid a salary from their institution, but others may be entirely supported by research grants, termed “soft money.” Graduate students and postdoctorates may be fully or partially supported by research grants. Technical support staff who operate and maintain instrumentation also may develop new techniques and instruments or may be involved with training users and students.

The current community of highly trained scientists undertaking analyses of extraterrestrial samples are employed in diverse settings. Of the 85 individual PIs who received NASA funding via the PMEF and LARS programs to purchase equipment for extraterrestrial sample analyses over the past 10 years, 54 (64 percent) are at educational institutions (universities, community colleges), 18 (21 percent) are at government agencies or laboratories (e.g., NASA centers, National Laboratories, U.S. Geological Survey, etc.), 11 (13 percent) are at nonprofit research institutes (e.g., Carnegie Institution of Washington), and 2 (2 percent) are at museums.¹¹ Most PIs have some percentage of their salaries paid by their home institutions. University faculty typically receive nine months of salary and are encouraged to raise the remaining three months of salary through funded research proposals.

Until recently, under full cost accounting, employees of NASA centers were required to raise their salaries through competitive research proposals. However, research funding for civil servants might also come, in part, from the SMD Internal Scientist Funding Model (ISFM), a 3-year pilot program that provides some direct funding to scientists at NASA centers.

Highly trained scientists or engineers who can provide technical support are essential for laboratory sustainability. Technical staff exist in some, but not all laboratories that have been funded for analytical equipment by PMEF and LARS. At NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, technical

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¹¹ Jeffrey Grossman, NASA, “List of funded PMEs and LARS equipment,” personal communication, January 11, 2018.

support staff in laboratories doing extraterrestrial analyses now typically receive about 50 to 66 percent of their salaries via the ISFM program. The remainder of their salaries is raised through grants or recharge work for outside users. Currently, NASA Planetary Science Division does not fund technical support staff or service contracts on instrumentation purchased through LARS or PMEF, although PIs may request partial salaries for staff as part of research and analysis grant proposals. These research and analysis grants are typically 3 years or less in duration. Thus, many laboratories operate without trained technical staff, or they must find other avenues to fund such staff.

The funding models for technical support at universities are varied. In one unique laboratory, the Reflectance Experiment Laboratory (RELAB) spectroscopy lab at Brown University, NASA funds permanent technical support (see Section 4.4.3). A few university laboratories have institutional funding for their technical staff. Generally, this is partial funding (see data in Appendix B). Many more university technical staff are funded entirely by soft money, which is generally a combination of 3-year grants and recharge for service work. Feedback from a NASA survey of funded PIs taken in 2016 indicates that many laboratories are finding it difficult to fund and retain skilled technical staff.¹² Another consequence of using soft money to fund technical positions is that the most qualified people for these positions may be discouraged due to the lack of job security and advancement.

The difficulty in paying for and retaining technical support staff means that NASA-funded equipment may be underutilized for returned sample analysis or may be busy running unrelated samples to ensure that sufficient funds are available to run the facility, or the facility may be operated inefficiently while waiting for repairs or for someone available to operate the instruments. Funding technical staff through recharge accounts means sample throughput must be maintained in order to generate funds, which limits the time available to undertake analyses of extraterrestrial samples and to develop new and cutting-edge analytical techniques and instrumentation.

In contrast to the United States, institutional funding of technical support staff in Europe is common, and it is becoming increasingly common in Asia (see Appendix C). For example, in France, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) has an annual competition to recruit engineers and technicians. Engineers define technical characteristics of scientific projects, develop new methods and techniques, and build and maintain or repair instruments. Technicians provide support to research scientists and engineers. Both engineers and technicians are hired in permanent positions and support researchers in their scientific activities (see Section 4.5).

There is a need for increased technical support within the U.S. sample return community. Currently, researchers are allowed to request partial salaries for technical staff in their science proposals, but there is not a mechanism to request funding specifically for technical support. In order to function efficiently and at the cutting edge, laboratories require staff with deep expertise, which is typically gained over decades of experience. Support of such highly skilled staff will benefit development of new methodologies for sample return analyses and allow laboratories to operate on firmer financial footing. Funding specifically for technical staff would differ from the current PSD opportunities; however, such funding would still need to be tied to the science that is to be undertaken by the laboratory.

Finding: U.S. extraterrestrial sample analysis laboratories are experiencing increased difficulty finding and retaining good technical support staff because of the soft money funding model.

Conclusion: Having laboratories dependent on recharge to pay technical support staff and maintain instruments suggests that NASA’s investment in analytical facilities is not being maximized.

Conclusion: NASA’s investment in analytical facilities could be enhanced by providing sustained funding for technical support staff, so that the analytical work undertaken by a laboratory remains focused on extraterrestrial sample analyses.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should provide means for longer-term (e.g., 5-year) funding of technical staff support.

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¹² Lunar and Planetary Institute, NASA’s Planetary Science Division Facilities, “Laboratory Support Survey,” https://www.lpi.usra.edu/psd-facilities/LaboratorySupportSurvey.pdf, accessed December 7, 2018.

5.2.3 Sample Curation

Sample curation begins with mission planning and the acquisition of the samples; sample return missions are required to include costs of initial curation within their budgets, including preliminary examination and cataloguing of the samples and ancillary materials (e.g., contact pads, witness plates). However, curation costs are a long-term investment, and will always exceed budgeted costs for curation associated with the mission, as samples need to be archived in clean, controlled environments and accessed as needed for analyses for decades following their return to Earth. Moreover, preliminary examination may exceed the 2-year post-mission window, depending on the nature of the materials. For example, preliminary examination is ongoing for the Stardust mission, more than a decade after the samples were returned. The costs of long-term curation of returned samples at JSC, including paying the salaries of the JSC curatorial staff and construction and maintenance of the curatorial facilities on the JSC campus and White Sands Test Facility site, are currently paid directly by NASA.

Sample curation and access requires long-term support of highly trained personnel and building of clean lab facilities to house and process the samples. Furthermore, while curation is often viewed as a set of activities within the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office at JSC and associated analytical facilities, curation does not end once the sample reaches the door, mailroom, or loading dock of that facility. There are significant challenges in distributing samples and coordinating movement of samples, as described in Sections 4.1 and 4.2.

All of the tasks described above are ably performed by the curatorial staff at JSC. Construction is under way for curatorial facilities to handle sample returns from Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx, as described in Chapter 4. The JSC curatorial staff provide expertise on sample handling, curation, and distribution to international partners who are preparing for their own sample returns (e.g., the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency [JAXA] and the European Space Agency [ESA]). The staff also help to train young scientists in the handling and characterization of returned samples.

Finding: The NASA Johnson Space Center Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office is the world leader in curating and tracking returned samples, as well as in the types of analyses conducted on those samples.

Finding: The impact of the NASA Johnson Space Center curatorial efforts goes well beyond their immediate duties of curation, as they have been instrumental in helping to train the next generation of extraterrestrial materials scientists and have helped in the development of curatorial facilities at international partner institutions.

5.3 FUTURE NASA PLANETARY SCIENCE INVESTMENTS

5.3.1 Instrumentation

While the current suite of instrumentation available for extraterrestrial sample analyses is adequate for the task at hand (see Chapter 4), there will be a need to access and develop different types of instruments and facilities if return of ices, gases, and additional organic matter becomes a reality. Moreover, collaboration with other nations offers a way to economize on instrumentation in order to maximize investment in return sample analyses.

While it can be anticipated that future missions will seek to return ices from comets or other bodies (e.g., from the polar regions of the Moon, Mars, etc.), the decadal survey did not select any cryogenic sample return missions.¹³ Applying the Aerospace Corporation’s cost and technical evaluation methodology, such missions were considered unachievable because the technology needed for their success is not yet developed. Rather, the survey suggested initiating a technology development program focused on Cryogenic Comet Sample Return.¹⁴ Such a program has not yet been initiated, but the CAESAR mission, a noncryogenic comet surface sample return mission, is currently in competition as part of the latest New Frontiers program.

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¹³ National Research Council (NRC), 2011, Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., https://doi.org/10.17226/13117.

¹⁴ NRC, 2011, Visions and Voyages, p. 101.

The return of organic matter in samples retrieved from ongoing missions to asteroids (Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx) is anticipated. Furthermore, proposed missions such as the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission to Phobos also seeks to return samples that may contain organic matter from either chondrites or Mars. The ability to analyze extraterrestrial organic matter has continued to improve along with advances in all aspects of analytical instrumentation: mass spectrometers have greater sensitivity and resolution; synchrotron light sources continue to evolve with brighter X-ray sources and enhanced beam control; and new types of analyses as well as sample preparation (e.g., focused ion beam milling) continue to emerge. Many of these advances occurred in response to the challenges of new sample availability—for example, the increased availability of meteorites (Section 2.2.1), the collection of interplanetary dust particles (Section 2.2.2), and sample return from the Stardust mission (Section 2.1.4) and Hayabusa (Section 2.1.5). In the future it is expected that, in all areas of analytical instrumentation, there will continue to be advances in sensitivity and resolution. For example, all current X-ray synchrotron light sources anticipate major upgrades in performance on frequencies of approximately 20 years; with such upgrades come opportunities for significantly better instruments and analytical capabilities. In the case of the analysis of extraterrestrial organic matter, it is expected that there will be major advances in analytical instrumentation.

International space agencies such as NASA, JAXA, ESA, the Canadian Space Agency, Roscosmos (the Russian state corporation for space activities), and others have a long history of collaboration in space exploration missions (for example the International Space Station). Participation by supplying elements of the mission in exchange for access to samples is commonplace. As researchers enter into an era with more space agencies conducting sample return missions, it is prudent to continue to extend such cooperation to the instruments required to analyze the returned samples. Maximizing the scientific value of the returned samples requires both standard laboratory equipment and large specialized laboratories and facilities. These facilities can be quite expensive and are sometimes very specialized for extraterrestrial samples. These instruments can, in some cases, be as large as sports arenas and can have the cost to match. It is costly to keep these laboratories funded, to retain the staff required to run them effectively and efficiently, to continue pushing the capabilities of the instruments, and to develop new capabilities. Duplication of highly specialized (and expensive) equipment by multiple agencies or countries is not always desirable or affordable. Appendix C provides data on some international laboratories and facilities that undertake extraterrestrial sample analyses and illustrates the broad range of equipment available, and the significant investment that these laboratories embody.

Individual scientists often collaborate across international boundaries to bring advanced instrumentation to bear on extremely rare and precious extraterrestrial samples. An example of this is the nitrogen isotope analyses carried out by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) at the University of Nancy, France, on samples from the Genesis mission. Such collaborations are presently encouraged and are expected to continue. This, however, does not address the more strategic challenge of making sure that international resources are better optimized, and ensuring the availability of robust state-of-the-art instrumentation for extraterrestrial sample analysis. NASA has experience in developing international collaborations for space missions, and this can be applied to the complex, state-of-the-art instruments necessary for sample return missions. Care will need to be taken to structure the agreement in ways that fully take into consideration hidden complexities such as export controls and restrictions on foreign nationals.

Finding: There are currently no missions under way or even planned that entail return of cryogenic materials. The potential return of gases is being considered (e.g., the CAESAR mission).

Finding: Many spacefaring nations have, like the United States, recognized the scientific potential of extraterrestrial sample return missions and have either executed such missions or are actively planning them.

Finding: These nations have invested significantly in state-of-the art instrumentation and in developing a highly skilled workforce to carry out analyses of extraterrestrial samples.

Conclusion: It would be advantageous for strategic alignment of investments in such facilities by international space agencies to maximize the availability of such facilities and, thus, the science of the returned samples.

Conclusion: Technology development focused on CCSR, as recommended by the decadal survey, is warranted.

Conclusion: Exploring technologies already available in related communities for analyses of ices, gases, and organic matter could benefit the extraterrestrial sample analysis community.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should make appropriate investments in the technological development of novel instrumentation and unconventional analytical techniques, specifically for curation, as well as characterization and analysis of nontraditional samples that are expected to be returned from future missions. These would likely include gases, ices, and organic matter, including volatile organic compounds and related hybrids and complexes.

Recommendation: With the rapid developments in related fields such as molecular biology, and concomitant advances in bio-organic analytical methodologies, NASA should consider partnerships with relevant federal agencies (e.g., the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health) and laboratories (e.g., the National Laboratories). NASA should implement information exchange activities (e.g., joint workshops) to enhance cross-fertilization and cooperative development of analytical instrumentation and methods, specifically to enhance analysis of organic matter (both macromolecular/polymeric and molecular-moderate molecular masses, as well as volatiles—low molecular weight compounds), in the study of extraterrestrial returned samples.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should continue to engage in strategic relationships with international partners to ensure that the best science possible is extracted from extraterrestrial samples with the limited resources available to all space agencies.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should consider ways to facilitate the dissemination of information about present and future international, state-of-the-art facilities relevant to sample analysis. This could, for example, include organizing workshops to be held with existing international conferences.

5.3.2 Staffing Required for Future Sample Return Analysis

Given that most of the current generation of planetary scientists will be retired by the time extraterrestrial samples are returned from future missions, a crucial aspect of laboratory sustainability is that young scientists are adequately trained in analytical methods and instrumentation. Graduate students and early-career scientists need to develop skills sets that will allow them to stay at the forefront of analytical techniques, and be able to troubleshoot, maintain, and potentially design and build the instruments of the future.

In 2010, one-quarter of NASA SMD budget was identified as mission enabling.¹⁵ Recruiting and training the next generation of planetary scientists was part of NASA PSD’s mission-enabling activities.¹⁶ This was implemented through the following opportunities: (1) education and public outreach supplements (which have since been curtailed); (2) fellowships for early-career researchers; (3) Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST; formerly known as NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowships [NESSFs]); and (4) the NASA postdoctoral program (NPP).

Education and public outreach supplemental awards were accessed by funded investigators to cover expenses related to outreach activities and education related to the PI’s research. The Early Career Researchers fellowships allowed the integration of new PSD researchers into established research programs and provided tools and

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¹⁵ NRC, 2010, An Enabling Foundation for NASA’s Earth and Space Science Missions, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., https://doi.org/10.17226/12822.

¹⁶ Planetary Science Subcommittee, 2011, Assessment of the NASA Planetary Science Division’s Mission-Enabling Activities, NASA Advisory Council Science Committee, Washington, D.C., August 29.

experience useful when searching for more advanced (i.e., tenure-track, civil servant, or equivalent) positions. The NESSFs (FINESSTs) were created to ensure continued training of a highly qualified workforce in disciplines needed to achieve NASA’s scientific goals. These fellowships are training grants provided to the respective universities, with the advisor serving as the principal investigator. The NPP, administered by Universities Space Research Association (USRA), offers research opportunities to highly talented national and international individuals to engage in ongoing NASA research programs at NASA Centers, NASA Headquarters, or NASA-affiliated research institutions. In addition, one of the missions of the now defunct NASA Lunar Science Institute was to advance lunar science through training the next generation of lunar scientists and encouraging education and public outreach.

Mission-enabling activities were part of the Research and Analysis programs. This program was recognized by the decadal survey as being of high priority: “For stability and scientific productivity, long-term core NASA research and analysis (R&A) programs are needed that sustain the science community and train the next generations of scientists.” In fact, in this survey, several scientific programs classified as “robust” were the ones providing opportunities for the training and development of the next generation of planetary scientists.

The R&A programs were reorganized in 2015. The NESSF (FINESST), NPP, and Early Career Fellowships continued unchanged. The Undergraduate Student Research Program was transformed into a new NASA internship program that is administered by USRA. Funding for the Planetary Biology Internship in Exobiology is uncertain. In addition to the need for stable funding that will allow these programs to continue, current PIs could be motivated to train the future generation of laboratory scientists by including criteria within the current evaluation for NASA Planetary Science proposals that addresses the needs for training the future generation of laboratory/planetary scientists, similar to the NSF system. Especially needed is the encouragement of future analytical instrument developers.

Conclusion: A highly qualified workforce that is able to perform both routine and state-of-the-art laboratory analyses, as well as develop the instruments of the future, is necessary to fulfill NASA’s goals for the characterization and analysis of future returned samples.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should encourage principal investigators to specifically address in their research proposals how the work will contribute toward training future generations of laboratory-based planetary scientists.

5.3.3 Future NASA Planetary Science Investments for Sample Curation

One of the paramount needs in curation is adequate space in clean laboratories to handle, store, and process current and future returned samples. While JSC is the center of such activities in the United States, the center footprint is constrained. However, JSC has developed a plan for expansion of the extraterrestrial sample curation facilities to accommodate samples from the asteroid return missions Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx and from anticipated future missions such as the Phobos sample return mission MMX (see Section 3.1). For this, JSC will add an annex to Building 31 to allow for renovation of current curatorial space. Plans are also being made to renovate another existing building to consolidate astromaterials research laboratories. While there will be no attempt to isolate organic materials that may be contained within the sample returns from asteroids, there has been significant investment to limit organic contamination on the spacecraft and collectors and, especially, to document the amount of contamination through the extensive use of witness plates and materials coupons, which are curated at the JSC facility.¹⁷

The first step in NASA’s Mars sample return, the Mars 2020 rover, is now being built and is expected to launch in July 2020. JSC curatorial staff are also beginning to formulate plans for handling of more challenging samples such as martian returned samples, which might include ices, gases, and a variety of organic compounds. Planning of the missions to return these challenging samples would benefit from input from the curatorial staff, given the depth of knowledge accrued from decades of curation, in addition to the knowledge gained as they ramp

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¹⁷ J.P. Dworkin, L.A. Adelman, T. Ajluni, A.V. Andronikov, J.C. Aponte, A.E. Bartels, E. Beshore, et al., 2018, OSIRIS-REx contamination control strategy and implementation, Space Science Reviews 214(1):19.

up for new types of samples. While JSC does not currently have the curatorial or analytical capabilities for the curation and examination of ice, gas, or challenging samples such as volatile organic compounds, these capabilities currently exist in companies that have developed multi-instrument configurations for analyses of such materials using different techniques.¹⁸

Another growing need, separate from curatorial needs but of great importance, is archiving the diverse array of information garnered from returned extraterrestrial samples (informatics). Informatics is currently under the purview of the Curation and Analysis Planning Team for Extra Terrestrial Materials (CAPTEM). An online archive of lunar sample analyses is currently being constructed,¹⁹ but online archives for other returned sample suites do not exist. Sample data archiving requires careful coordination between analysts and data managers to develop online databases capable of capturing the complex range of information associated with extraterrestrial sample analyses and to make the data readily available to the community.

Conclusion: It will be desirable to harness the expertise represented by the collective knowledge of the curatorial staff at JSC when future mission PIs are planning for sample return missions.

Conclusion: While JSC’s current expansion plans will provide adequate curatorial facilities for current missions (Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx) and possible near-future missions such as Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) sample return, there is a need to develop additional facilities for any future sample return in the 2030s and beyond. Such facilities will require advanced planning and new technologies for the return of diverse organic matter, ices, and gases.

Conclusion: There is a need to develop online archives of the analyses undertaken on all returned samples, along with metadata (e.g., analytical precision, accuracy, etc.) associated with these analyses.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should increase support for Johnson Space Center to develop appropriate curatorial and characterization facilities relevant to and necessary for future sample returns of organic matter, ices, and gases.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should accelerate planning for curation of returned martian samples, seeking partnerships with other countries, as appropriate.

5.4 SUSTAINING A SYSTEM OF PLANETARY SCIENCE LABORATORIES

In the next decade, the OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2 missions will return samples of primitive, organic-rich asteroids. The following decades hold the promise of sample return from the Moon, the moons of Mars, comets, and the surface of Mars. Collectively, these missions promise to revolutionize understanding of the origin and evolution of the solar system. These samples, returned at considerable cost to the taxpayer, will yield scientific insights only if properly curated, distributed, and analyzed. Numerous challenges exist to optimize this scientific return. While new missions will return unprecedented samples, existing samples continue to yield new clues to the solar system’s origin. Curatorial facilities utilizing existing technology will need expansion, while entirely new types of curation for gases, ices, and organic compounds will have to be developed. These facilities will require highly trained staffing, along with the physical and data infrastructure to maintain the integrity of the samples. Analytical laboratories will require continual replacement of obsolete equipment. While current capacity and capability is maintained, new analytical instrumentation will increase capability. These instruments require highly trained professionals afforded the stability to develop and operate these instruments. Collectively, the above needs present significant challenges for NASA to maintain and improve upon capabilities and capacities for analysis of returned samples, and for the community to benefit scientifically from the extraordinary financial commitment required to return these samples to Earth.

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¹⁸ See, for example, the Tescan, “Technology,” https://www.tescan.com/en-us/technology, accessed December 7, 2018.

¹⁹ MoonDB, “Homepage,” http://www.moondb.org/, accessed December 7, 2018.

Finding: As currently formulated, NASA’s investment in analytical instrumentation is insufficient to provide replacement of existing instruments. Addition of new technological innovations further strain the current funding programs.

Conclusion: Without modest to significant increases in funding by NASA in analytical instrumentation for sample analyses, either a decrease in capacity or a reduction in future capabilities seems inevitable, as well as the inability to support highly trained technical staff, train the next generation of extraterrestrial sample analysts and laboratory instrument developers, and begin planning for the curation and analyses of challenging new types of samples.

Recommendation: NASA Planetary Science Division should place high priority on investment in analytical instrumentation (including purchase, maintenance, technical oversight, and development) and curation (facilities and protocols) sufficient to provide for both replacement of existing capacity and development of new capabilities. This will maximize the benefit from the significant investment necessary to return samples for laboratory analysis from asteroids, comets, the Moon, and eventually Mars and outer solar system moons.