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Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis (2019)

Chapter: 2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections

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Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
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2

Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections

This chapter describes materials brought back by previous sample return missions, as well as major meteorite collections, cosmic dust collections, and their curation. Also reviewed is the generation and curation of analog materials, analytical standards, and witness plates.

2.1 SAMPLE RETURN MISSIONS

2.1.1 USA—Apollo

The Manned Spaceflight Center (MSC) was established in 1961 in Houston, Texas, as the home and Mission Control Center for the U.S. human space flight program. The MSC opened in 1963, with Gemini IV as the first flight controlled there, and continued to grow throughout the Gemini program. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy set the goal of landing humans on the Moon and returning them safely within the decade, which led to the beginning of the Apollo missions. In 1973, the MSC was renamed the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in honor of the late president and has been the heart of the crewed space flight program ever since.

Six Apollo spacecraft plus 12 astronauts landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972, each returning lunar samples to Earth (Apollo missions 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17; see Table 2.1 and Figure 2.1). Apollo 13 launched to the Moon but did not land because an oxygen tank exploded en route. The Apollo 15-17 missions carried an electric lunar roving vehicle that was used to explore a much wider area. More areas could be explored as time spent on the lunar surface was extended, and as the capabilities of the spacecraft were proven, each successive mission brought back more samples than the previous.

A variety of tools were used to collect rock and regolith samples (see Allton, 1989, for a description of all Apollo sampling tools and containers1). The six Apollo missions brought back nearly 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand, and dust from the lunar surface. As part of Apollo preparations in 1964, a small, 10-meter-square sample receiving laboratory was built so that sample containers could be opened and their contents repackaged under high vacuum for distribution to scientists.

The Lunar Sample Laboratory facility, built in 1979, is now the main repository for the Apollo samples and is located at the JSC complex. It was constructed to provide permanent storage of the lunar samples in a

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1 J.H. Allton, 1989, Catalog of Apollo Lunar Surface Geologic Sampling Tools and Containers, JSC-23454, p. 97, Johnson Space Center.

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
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TABLE 2.1 Lunar Samples Returned

Year Launch Date Name Location Mass Returned (kg) Date Returned
Apollo Crewed Landings (United States)
1969 July 16 Apollo 11 Mare Tranquillitatis 21.6 July 24
1969 November 14 Apollo 12 Oceanus Procellarum 34.3 November 24
1971 January 31 Apollo 14 Fra Mauro 42.3 February 9
1971 July 26 Apollo 15 Hadley Rille 77.3 August 7
1972 April 16 Apollo 16 Descartes Highlands 95.7 April 27
1972 December 7 Apollo 17 Taurus-Littrow 110.5 December 19
Luna Robotic Sample Return (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)
1970 September 12 Luna 16 Mare Fecunditatis 0.10 September 24
1972 February 14 Luna 20 Apollonius Highlands 0.05 February 25
1976 August 14 Luna 24 Mare Crisium 0.17 August 22
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FIGURE 2.1 Lunar near-side map showing the locations of the landed missions during the Soviet and U.S. space race of the 1960s and 1970s. See Table 2.1 for sample masses returned from Apollo and Luna (16, 20, 24) sites. SOURCE: Modified from C. Neal, 2009, The Moon 35 years after Apollo: What’s left to learn? Chemie der Erde—Geochemistry 69(1):3-43. Courtesy of Clive Neal.
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×

secure and noncontaminating environment. The facility consists of storage vaults for the samples, laboratories for sample curation and study, a vault for sample data and records, and nitrogen-filled cabinets in which the samples are stored and processed (see Section 4.2 of this report, which describes these facilities in more detail). There are two Apollo 15 samples (15012 and 15013) that have had subsamples stored in helium. These were collected in Special Environmental Sample Containers that were sealed on the Moon (15012 achieved a good seal and preserved vacuum, but 15013 did not due to a wire getting caught in the sealing mechanism). The containers were taken to the University of California, Berkeley, and opened in a clean room under a helium atmosphere where the samples were removed for nitrogen analysis and reserve portions prepared in separate airtight containers for long-term storage under helium at JSC. Since then, the samples have been continuously stored in the returned sample vault in a large container known as the “bean pot” with a constant supply of helium. There are 21 subsamples of 15012 (212 g total) and 16 subsamples of 15013 (198 g total) presently stored in the bean pot. For comparison purposes, portions of both 15012 and 15013 have been stored and processed within a standard Apollo dry nitrogen cabinet.2

A second storage facility at the White Sands Test Facility, New Mexico, houses representative samples from each mission. The White Sands facility consists of an approximately 11-meter-square vault and an attached approximately 12-meter-square clean room. Fifty-two kilograms, representing roughly 10 to 15 percent of the total Apollo return samples, are stored there as a safeguard should disaster strike the JSC facility.

The list of major scientific results stemming from studies of the Apollo samples is legendary and continues to grow. It is safe to say that the understanding of the Moon, Earth, and also the solar system changed profoundly based on these studies. Chief among the most important results is determining the nature of the light-colored crust on the Moon (dominated by a rock called anorthosite, which is scarce on Earth), discovering that the Moon had an early magma ocean, placing quantitative constraints on the timing of early impacts, constraining the age of the Moon, revealing that the interior of the Moon contains endogenous volatiles (discovered in 2008), discovering that the Moon and Earth share identical oxygen isotope signatures (which places major constrains on the giant impact hypothesis for generating the moon), and many more. The interested reader is referred to several published books about the Moon; see Taylor, 1975; Ringwood, 1979; Jolliff et al., 2006.3

Approximately 1,900 samples are distributed each year for research and teaching projects. These sample requests are handled by the Curation and Analysis Planning Team for Extra Terrestrial Materials (CAPTEM;4 see Section 4.3).

2.1.2 USSR—Luna

Between 1959 and 1976, the Soviet Union conducted 24 uncrewed Luna missions, including flybys, orbiters, landers, rovers, and sample return missions. Notable among the accomplishments of these missions were Luna 17 and 21, which traveled a total of 47.5 km across the lunar surface over 461 Earth days, and Luna 16, 20, and 24, which returned a total of approximately 300 g of lunar regolith samples from the eastern near side of the Moon (see Figure 2.1 and Table 2.1). Luna 16 landed in Mare Fecunditatis (returning 101 g) and Luna 24 in Mare Crisium (returning 170 g). Luna 20 landed in a mountainous region between the two basins called Terra Apollonius (returning 50 g). These samples expand the geographical coverage of sampling on the Moon beyond that of the Apollo missions. Samples from the Luna 20 and 24 missions are stored in nitrogen and those from Luna 16 are stored in helium in the Laboratory of Meteoritics at the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry (GEOKhI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. In addition to these samples, approximately 1,700 meteorites from the collection of the Russian Academy of Sciences are stored under nitrogen and argon-gas

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2 NASA, 2008, “Specially Curated Apollo Samples – Programmatic Information Package”, NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System, https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/viewrepositorydocument/cmdocumentid=626457//Specially_Curated_Apollo_Samples_final.pdf.

3 S.R. Taylor, 1975, Lunar Science: A Post-Apollo View, Pergamon Press, New York; A.E. Ringwood, 1979, Origin of the Earth and Moon, Springer-Verlag, Berlin; B.L. Jolliff, M.A. Wieczorek, C.K. Shearer, and C.R. Neal, eds., 2006, New Views of the Moon, Vol. 60 in Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, Mineralogical Society of America, Chantilly, Va.

4 NASA, “CAPTEM Homepage,” https://www.lpi.usra.edu/captem/, last updated September 26, 2018.

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×

environments.5 When the samples were returned, initial characterization included magnetic measurements, grain-size distributions, mineralogy and petrology of the samples, as well as stratigraphy of the core. A small fraction of the Luna samples (~11 g total) were provided to JSC in exchange for Apollo samples in the 1970s; approximately 6 g of this material remains in original condition and available for study.6

2.1.3 USA—Genesis (Launched August 8, 2001 - Returned September 9, 2004)

“All of the objects in our solar system originated from a cloud of interstellar gas, dust and ice, known as the solar nebula. Scientists assume the solar nebula was relatively homogeneous in its chemical and isotopic composition. In contrast, objects currently present in the solar system have a wide variation in composition.”7 To study this evolution, NASA’s first sample return since Apollo 17, the Genesis mission, was launched in August 2001 to collect solar wind samples from the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point8 and return them to Earth for study, in order to obtain a better understanding of the origin of the solar system (Figure 2.2).

The samples were embedded in collector arrays consisting of 15 different ultra-pure, well-characterized materials. Although the craft’s parachute failed to deploy on return to Earth, causing the spacecraft to crash-land, sample analysis was still able to be performed on material from the salvaged collectors (Figure 2.3). Several forms of cutting-edge mass spectrometry and synchrotron-based total reflectance X-ray fluorescence were used to determine elemental and isotopic composition.9 These included transformational oxygen isotope measurements on an instrument created expressly for this purpose, the MegaSIMS at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),10 which demonstrated the intriguing result that the oxygen isotopic composition of the solar wind (and by inference, the Sun) is very different from inner solar system bodies (Earth, Moon, Mars).11

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FIGURE 2.2 Artist’s rendering of the Genesis spacecraft in collection mode SOURCE: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Genesis,” https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/genesis/main/, last updated June 23, 2011.

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5 Personal communication, Dmitry Badyukov, Head of the Laboratory of Meteoritics, V.I. Vernadsky Institute, Moscow.

6 NASA Johnson Space Center, “Lunar Sample and Photo Catalog,” https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/samplecatalog/, last updated August 7, 2018.

7 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Genesis,” https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/genesis/main/, last updated June 23, 2011.

8 L1 is an equilibrium point between the Earth and Sun’s gravitational forces.

9 Burnett and the Genesis Science Team, 2011, Solar composition from the Genesis Discovery Mission, Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences U.S.A. 108(48):19147-19151.

10 University of California, Los Angeles, 2017, “MegaSIMS”,http://megasims.ess.ucla.edu/index.php.

11 K. McKeegan, A.P. Kallio, V.S. Heber, G. Jarzebinski, P.H. Mao, C.D. Coath, T. Kunihiro, et al., 2011, The oxygen isotopic composition of the Sun inferred from captured solar wind, Science 332(6037):1528-1532.

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Image
FIGURE 2.3 The Genesis spacecraft prior to launch showing hexagonal polished collectors of pure materials that accumulated solar wind from three regimes over a 28-month time period. Inset: Pieces of Genesis collector array wafers recovered from the impact site of the sample return capsule. The Genesis curation team was able to recover solar wind samples from these pieces, and analyses by an instrument that was specially built for the mission (MegaSIMS) demonstrated the unexpected finding that terrestrial planets have a distinct oxygen isotopic composition from the solar nebula, as represented by the Sun. SOURCE: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Genesis,” https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/genesis/main/, last updated June 23, 2011.

Curation and examination of Genesis samples occurs at the curatorial facilities at JSC. There are two adjacent laboratories for this purpose, both International Standards Organization (ISO) Class 4 clean rooms.12 One clean room is for cleaning the containers and tools used in handling and cleaning the solar wind samples. The second room is for the long-term storage of samples and for examination and processing of the samples (see Section 4.2 for more details).

2.1.4 USA—Stardust (Launched February 7, 1999 - Returned January 15, 2006)

NASA’s Stardust mission, launched February 7, 1999, was a 390 kg robotic space probe that encountered comet Wild 2 and collected thousands of coma dust grains of sizes 100 μm or smaller (Figure 2.4).13 The main challenge in collecting the dust grains was successfully slowing the particles from their high velocity with minimal

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12 The ISO for clean rooms reflects the concentration of particles of different sizes per volume of air. For example, ISO 4 indicates a concentration of 10 particles of greater than or equal to 0.5 microns per cubic foot of air. The lower the ISO number, the fewer the concentration of particles. See https://www.iso.org/standard/53394.html, accessed December 7, 2018.

13 P. Tsou, D.E. Brownlee, S.A. Sandford, F. Horz, and M.E. Zolensky, 2003, Wild 2 and interstellar sample collection and Earth return, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets 108(E10).

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Image
FIGURE 2.4 Artist’s rendering of the Stardust spacecraft with the aerogel collector extended. SOURCE: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Stardust NASA’s Comet Sample Return Mission,” https://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html, last updated February 12, 2006.

heating and without altering their physical state. Stardust used a substance called aerogel, a silicon-based solid with a porous, sponge-like structure in which 99.8 percent of the volume is empty space, to collect the coma dust grains. In addition, metallic aluminum alloy foils exposed on the forward, comet-facing surface of the aerogel tray were impacted by the same cometary particle population and were able to record hypervelocity impacts as bowl-shaped craters.

On its return to Earth, Stardust exposed an additional aerogel tray with the goal of collecting approximately 100 interstellar dust particles. The sample containers were taken to a clean room, and preliminary estimations suggest that at least a million microscopic specks of dust were embedded in the aerogel collectors (Figure 2.5). Some of the material, totaling less than 1 mg, has been extracted using various techniques and analyzed. To date, seven dust particles of interstellar origin have been identified.14 Dust grains are being observed and analyzed by a volunteer team, calling themselves “Dusters,” through the distributed computing project, Stardust@Home, a University of California, Berkeley, citizen-science project that proved critical to finding these dust grains. The identification, extraction, analyses, and curation of these particles is ongoing.

Like its predecessor, Genesis, the Stardust mission held big surprises once analyses were made of the returned materials. Foremost among these was the discovery of high-temperature, inner solar system materials as the dominant component of the rocky portion of the comet, which had been expected to be dominated by interstellar

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14 A.J. Westphal, R.M. Stroud, H.A. Bechtel, F.E. Brenker, A.L. Butterworth, G.J. Flynn, D.R. Frank, et al., 2014, Interstellar dust: evidence for interstellar origin of seven dust particles collected by the Stardust spacecraft, Science 345:786-791.

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Image
FIGURE 2.5 A 1500-μm-long track containing material from the coma of comet 81P/Wild 2, extracted from the Stardust cometary aerogel collector in a “keystone” and mounted on a polysilicon “micropicklefork” for synchrotron X-ray microprobe analysis. SOURCE: Courtesy of Andrew Westphal, University of California, Berkeley.

dust.15 This finding requires that an effective means of transport existed between the inner and outermost solar system very early on, a process not previously imagined prior to this mission. Another surprise was the discovery that organic solids in Stardust samples are similar to those found in carbonaceous chondrites, interplanetary dust particles, and at least one Kuiper belt object.16 This is significant because it was previously assumed that organic solids associated with outer solar system bodies, such as comets, were formed from a different process than organic solids found within the inner solar system (e.g., in chondritic meteorites). The Stardust samples demonstrated that the known extraterrestrial organic solids formed from a common process.

2.1.5 Japan—Hayabusa (Launched May 9, 2003 - Returned June 13, 2010)

The Hayabusa mission launched in May 9, 2003, with the goal to return samples from the small, near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa (Figure 2.6). It rendezvoused with the asteroid mid-September 2005, where it studied the asteroid’s shape, spin, topography, density, and composition. In November 2005, the craft’s sample collection technique of firing small projectiles into the asteroid and using a funnel to catch the resulting debris did not work; however, the spacecraft made several touch-and-go maneuvers on the asteroid. During one of these, Hayabusa inadvertently impacted on the asteroid’s surface after losing communication with Earth, but it was recovered and

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15 H.A. Ishii, J.P. Bradley, Z.R. Dia, M.F. Chi, A.T. Kearsley, M.J. Burchell, N.D. Browning, and F. Molster, 2008, Comparison of comet 81P/Wild 2 dust with interplanetary dust from comets, Science 319: 447-450.

16 G.E. Cody, E. Heying, C.M.O’D. Alexander, L.R. Nittler, A.L.D. Kilcoyne, S.A. Sandford, and R.M. Stroud, R.M., 2011, Establishing a molecular relationship between chondritic and cometary organic solids, Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences U.S.A. 108:19171-19176.

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Image
FIGURE 2.6 Image of the asteroid Itokawa, taken by the Hayabusa spacecraft from approximately 8 km away. SOURCE: NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day, “The Missing Craters of Asteroid Itokawa,” https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140209.html, last updated February 9, 2014. Courtesy of JAXA/ISAS.

did collect in the funnel approximately 5,000 particles that were approximately 10 micrometers in size, with a total weight of less than a milligram.17

The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) returned the craft to Earth on June 13, 2010, and 10 percent of the samples, which range in size from 26 μm to 177 μm, were allocated to NASA in exchange for their support of the mission. The samples were recovered by swabbing a Teflon spatula along the collector. Because collection at Itokawa did not go as planned, it is believed that some particles represent contamination.18

JAXA’s Hayabusa collection is stored at the Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center (ESCuC) at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Sagamihara City, Japan, which was completed in 2008. The facility is on two floors, with the analytical equipment in the basement and the sample curation facilities on the first floor, taking up approximately 1,000 m2. The collection is catalogued online and is available for loan.19 The Astromaterials Science Research Group, established in 2015, is continuing the curatorial work for Hayabusa returned samples. As of February 2017, approximately half of NASA’s Hayabusa collection is available for study and stored at JSC; the other half is out on loan to academic and other research institutions, where detailed chemical, microstructural, and other analyses are being undertaken.

Phase 1 curation (sample description) was completed at the JAXA curation facility. The phase 2 curation of these returned samples will entail thorough analysis and characterization through methods such as X-ray computed

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17 Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), “JAXA Repository/AIREX,” https://repository.exst.jaxa.jp/dspace/handle/a-is/867999, last updated February 23, 2017.

18 T. Yada, M. Abe, M. Uesugi, Y. Karouji, K. Kumagai, W. Satake, Y. Ishibashi, A. Nakato, and T. Okada, 2014, A nature of particles in the Hayabusa sample catcher and contamination controls for Hayabusa 2 sample containers (abstract). 77th Annual Meteoritical Society Meeting, https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/metsoc2014/pdf/5239.pdf.

19 JAXA Astromaterials Science Research Group, “Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center,” https://hayabusaao.isas.jaxa.jp/curation/hayabusa/index.html, accessed December 7, 2018.

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×

tomography/X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy/scanning transmission electron microscopy, electron probe microanalysis, secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, instrumental neutron activation analysis, noble-gas-mass spectrometry, and time-of-flight SIMS in both the JAXA curation facility and in several research institutes outside JAXA led by the JAXA curation facility. (See Appendix F for a key to instrument acronyms.)

2.2 OTHER COLLECTIONS

2.2.1 Major Meteorite Collections and Their Current Curation

Although meteorites have been recovered and preserved since at least 1492 with the fall of the Ensisheim meteorite in France, scientific collections of meteorites emerged in Europe in the first decade of the 19th century with the recognition that meteorites were objects of extraterrestrial origin. Early studies focused primarily on obtaining bulk chemical compositions. Introduction of the petrographic microscope to the study of meteorites yielded a number of new and interesting minerals. Nonetheless, meteorites remained curiosities through the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, largely confined to collections of major museums in Europe and the United States, a few universities, and a handful of private collectors. Interest in meteorites—and the associated analytical equipment with which to study them—grew rapidly after World War II and the introduction of chemical and isotopic studies.

Within a few decades, instrumentation for in situ mineralogical and mineral chemical analyses, including the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and electron microprobe, were commonplace in universities, museums, and research institutes. Chemical analyses of meteorites included both stable and radiogenic isotopes, yielding the first reliable estimates of the age of Earth and the solar system. Meteorite collections grew serendipitously through 1969, with both occasional finds of meteorites that had fallen within the last few thousand years and modern falls, some of which were observed. The introduction of fireball-observing networks yielded proof of the asteroidal origin of most meteorites. From the 1960s through the end of the 20th century, analytical techniques were pushed to increasingly precise measurements of ever smaller volumes, driven in part by the recognition that bulk isotopic signatures reflected the inclusion of particles and individual grains formed at or even before the birth of the solar system. At the same time, the availability of meteorites increased dramatically with the realization that deserts held vast numbers of meteorites. The first recognition of this came from the cold deserts of Antarctica, where discovery by Japanese glaciologists of distinct meteorites concentrated by ice movement would cascade into discovery of tens of thousands of meteorites. Toward the turn of the century, comparably large numbers of meteorites would be recovered from the hot deserts of the world—notably in northern Africa and the Middle East. As of the writing of this report, more than 57,000 named meteorites, with another nearly 8,000 provisionally named, were known to science, representing, by far, the largest share of extraterrestrial material available for study in analytical laboratories.

There are currently different levels of curation and accessibility to collections in the United States. First is JSC (high-level curation; accessibility through committee review of requests), then major museums and a few universities (midlevel curation; readily accessible through a single curator), and then a myriad of other collections (mid- to low-level curation; not widely accessible to the community). A few of the major museums and universities with high-level curation are listed below to illustrate the depth and history of these major meteorite collections that are accessible to the scientific community.

2.2.1.1 Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.)

The meteorite collection at the Smithsonian Institution traces its origin to the collection of James Smithson and has grown to its current size through large donations of personal collections, purchases, and trades. The meteorite collection currently includes 19,596 different meteorites and 56,190 specimens. The Smithsonian also provides initial characterization of the newly collected specimens from the Antarctic Meteorite Program, followed by permanent storage and distribution to the scientific community. Of the almost 16,000 Antarctic meteorites collected since 1976, over 14,000 meteorites are permanently housed at the Museum Support Center clean room facility at Suitland, Maryland.

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×

2.2.1.2 Field Museum (Chicago)

The meteorite collection at the Field Museum is housed within the Robert A. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies. The collection currently includes 1,593 different meteorites and 12,251 specimens in a newly renovated, climate-controlled, secure facility in dust-tight metal cabinets.20 The Field Museum is part of a three-institution Chicago Center for Cosmochemistry together with Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago, whose mandate is to promote education and research in cosmochemistry.

2.2.1.3 American Museum of Natural History (New York)

The meteorite collection of the American Museum of Natural History is housed in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department on the museum campus, with over 120 samples on display in the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites. The collection includes more than 5,500 samples of roughly 1,350 unique meteorites housed in a secure space in metal cabinets, some dust-tight, monitored 24/7 by museum security. The collection serves the global meteoritics community and acts as a hub for researchers in the New York region.

2.2.1.4 Major University Meteorite Museums

A significant number of universities have acquired meteorite collections that range from small collections primarily used by researchers within that university to major collections that serve as repositories for research materials used by the broader scientific community. Among these are Harvard University, Yale University, Texas Christian University, Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, the University of New Mexico, and UCLA. Here, two of these collections are highlighted—one started in the early 19th century and the other primarily resulting from collections of the 20th century.

Peabody Museum of Natural History (New Haven, Connecticut)

The Peabody Museum of Natural History is located on the campus of Yale University. The collection started in 1807, which makes it the oldest in the world, and has strengths in American meteorites of the 19th century. The meteorite collection currently includes approximately 1,100 different meteorites and approximately 4,000 total specimens. In 2019, there will be a major acquisition that will double the number of meteorites and bring the total number of individual specimens to approximately 5,500.21

Arizona State University (Tempe)

The Carleton B. Moore meteorite collection is housed in the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University. It is touted as the largest university-based collection, with 2,000 distinct meteorite falls and over 40,000 individual specimens. An approximately 370-square-meter, climate-controlled collection storage vault, including specialized steel specimen cabinets, nitrogen dry-environment cabinets, and heavy-duty full-extension shelving cabinets for oversize meteorites was built in 2012. The associated Isotope Cosmochemistry and Geochronology Laboratory contains a wide range of analytical equipment such as a class 10,000 clean laboratory and a multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS) with laser ablation system (see Appendix B).

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20 Field Museum, “The Robert A. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies,” http://meteorites.fieldmuseum.org/node/12, last updated November 13, 2012.

21 Jay Ague, personal communication.

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×

2.2.2 Cosmic Dust

In addition to the other extraterrestrial materials collections, the JSC curatorial facility houses the unique cosmic dust collection.22Cosmic dust generally refers to extraterrestrial particles with sizes below 100 μm that float down through Earth’s atmosphere. Starting in the early 1980s, NASA began a program collecting such particles—also known as interplanetary dust particles (IDPs)—in Earth’s stratosphere, largely using ultra-high-flying piloted planes with accessory collectors. The collectors are stored and curated at the JSC curatorial facility.

Whereas cosmic dust clearly comes from many different sources, it became clear that certain Earth orbit crossings by specific objects (e.g., comets such as 55P/Temple-Tuttle and 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup) provided an opportunity to sample cosmic dust from these primitive bodies. Most recently, a collection flight designed to capture cosmic dust from the comet 21P/Glacobini-Zinner was flown. The Cosmic Dust Collection Program provides a means of sampling a wide range of primitive objects.

The Cosmic Dust Laboratory resides in an ISO Class 5 laminar flow clean room. The collectors are subject to preliminary investigation using optical microscopy. Identified particles are removed and cleaned of silicone oil, and a subset are subsequently characterized using SEM and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis.

According to Zolensky (2016), the current NASA collection residing at JSC includes over 3,000 particles that are “precharacterized”—meaning assessed via optical microscopy—but not analyzed further.23 The analytical techniques developed in terrestrial laboratories and the experience gained through studies of IDPs greatly enhanced analytical capabilities leading to the conception and implementation of the NASA Stardust sample return mission to Comet 81P/Wild 2.

2.2.3 Analog Materials, Analytical Standards, and Witness Plates

A number of ancillary materials are required in order to obtain accurate and precise data for returned samples. These include analog materials such as rocks, minerals, ices, gases, and organic compounds, both naturally occurring and manufactured, that play an important role in connection with the curation and subsequent study of extraterrestrial samples from sample return missions; analytical standards that are required to calibrate instruments and to assess accuracy of data; and witness plates, which are used to assess possible contamination experienced by the sample.

2.2.3.1 Analog Materials

These are samples with well-characterized physical, chemical, or biological properties that serve as analogs of returned samples for assessing the effects of sample flow from storage and handling in the curation facility, distribution to laboratories outside the curation facility, and handling of these materials in the laboratories. These materials can be used to test and refine the protocols for handling returned samples in the curation facility and in external laboratories, and for transport within and between these facilities.

To the extent that some returned samples will require extreme special handling out of concerns for planetary protection from biological hazards (see Section 3.4.2), analog materials are useful in documenting how such special handling will affect the overall organic and inorganic properties of the samples. The analog materials also allow for studies of how expected changes in environmental conditions between sample collection, transport to and on Earth, storage, and manipulation both in a curatorial facility and at outside laboratories will potentially degrade certain key properties that one would otherwise want to analyze.

2.2.3.2 Analytical Standards

Analytical standards are materials with well-characterized chemical properties that are used for referring analytical measurements to internationally recognized standard values. Another important use of either natural or

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22 NASA Johnson Space Center, “Cosmic Dust Sample Collection,” https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/dust/, last updated August 30, 2018.

23 M.E. Zolensky, 2016, NASA’s Cosmic Dust Program: Collecting dust since 1981, Elements 12:159-160.

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×

synthetic standard materials is to document and correct for mass fractionation in mass spectrometers as a function of matrix composition (e.g., a set of olivine standards with known isotopic composition and different iron-magnesium ratios for use in SIMS isotopic analyses). In many cases, correcting for matrix effects is the limiting factor in high-precision microanalytical measurements by laser ablation multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) or by SIMS. Developing and distributing comprehensive sets of samples for quantifying matrix effects across the range of relevant properties of extraterrestrial samples will allow for more precise and realistic interlaboratory comparison of analytical results for these in situ methods.

Arguably the most widespread use of analytical standards is to document accuracy of analyses by various analytical methods, where the standards are analyzed as unknowns using the same protocol as the samples. Many organizations—for example, the National Institute of Standards, U.S. Geological Survey, Smithsonian Institution, Geological Survey of Japan, Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry, and so on—have generated analytical standards, and most are freely available upon request. A relatively comprehensive compilation of published standard values for trace elements and isotopes is available on the GeoReM website, which is maintained by a group at the Max-Planck Institute for Geochemistry in Mainz, Germany.24

2.2.3.3 Witness Plates

Witness plates are used to document in space and time the environment in which extraterrestrial materials are sampled, stored, manipulated, and analyzed in terms of chemical, organic, or biological contamination.25 Witness plates fly on all current and planned extraterrestrial sample return missions, and these are curated at JSC for all NASA missions.

Witness plates are an essential element of any contamination control (CC) and contamination knowledge (CK) plan for a space mission. In particular, contamination knowledge samples are critical for sample return missions, because they represent the baseline from which contamination is established in the returned samples. In all space missions, witness plates are exposed during spacecraft manufacturing, integration, and testing. CC samples serve as the ground truth for effective contamination control and mitigation actions. They are periodically examined and then removed from the spacecraft before launch. CK samples are collected in parallel with the CC samples, but they are archived without examination. Both the CC and CK preflight witness plates are archived for resolving questions that might later arise. For sample return missions, returnable witness plates are installed that will document the environment of the spacecraft and the sample collection systems throughout the mission. Exposure of spacecraft to vacuum causes outgassing of various materials, including organic materials from lubricants and combustion products from maneuvering thrusters and propulsion systems. Sample collection systems are often kept sealed until late in the mission to minimize contamination opportunities. For example, an extensive collection of witness plates was employed during spacecraft assembly, testing, and launch operations for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission (see Section 3.1.1).26

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24 Max-Planck-Institut für Chemie, “Geological and Environmental Reference Materials,” http://georem.mpch-mainz.gwdg.de/, last updated January 1, 2019.

25 Witness plates are also known as witness surfaces or witness standards.

26 D.S. Lauretta, S.S. Balram-Knutson, E. Beshore, W.V. Boynton, C. Drouet d’Aubigny, D.N. DellaGiustina, H.L. Enos, et al., 2017, OSIRIS-REx: Sample return from asteroid (101955) Bennu, Space Science Reviews 212(1-2):925-984.

Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 8
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 9
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 10
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 11
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 12
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 13
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 14
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 15
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 16
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 17
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 18
Suggested Citation:"2 Previous Sample Return Missions and Other Collections." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25312.
×
Page 19
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The United States possesses a treasure-trove of extraterrestrial samples that were returned to Earth via space missions over the past four decades. Analyses of these previously returned samples have led to major breakthroughs in the understanding of the age, composition, and origin of the solar system. Having the instrumentation, facilities and qualified personnel to undertake analyses of returned samples, especially from missions that take up to a decade or longer from launch to return, is thus of paramount importance if the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is to capitalize fully on the investment made in these missions, and to achieve the full scientific impact afforded by these extraordinary samples. Planetary science may be entering a new golden era of extraterrestrial sample return; now is the time to assess how prepared the scientific community is to take advantage of these opportunities.

Strategic Investments in Instrumentation and Facilities for Extraterrestrial Sample Curation and Analysis assesses the current capabilities within the planetary science community for sample return analyses and curation, and what capabilities are currently missing that will be needed for future sample return missions. This report evaluates whether current laboratory support infrastructure and NASA's investment strategy is adequate to meet these analytical challenges and advises how the community can keep abreast of evolving and new techniques in order to stay at the forefront of extraterrestrial sample analysis.

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