Will the lander contaminate Mars with life forms from Earth?
This is very unlikely. All US space missions are required to meet planetary protection standards, and these standards are particularly stringent for Mars. As a Mars lander with no life detection experiments, the Mars Polar Lander is categorized as a Category IV A mission. This requires that the spacecraft has to be assembled in a class 100,000 clean room, and that contamination control effectiveness must be monitored and demonstrated by periodic microbiological assays. The spacecraft carried fewer hardy spores at launch than the number of bacteria that might be found in a large glass of water, and many of these will die before the Lander reaches Mars. The planetary protection approach also takes into account the extreme dryness, oxidizing soil, and lower atmospheric pressure of Mars, which will limit any growth by terrestrial organisms. The Mars Polar Lander project has completed the Planetary Protection Plan for the mission detailing how the requirements will be met. 13. Has the lande
