POLICY AND RULES FOR JAXA EXTRATERRESTRIALSAMPLE CURATION CENTER ACTIVITY.
T. Okada1, T. Yada1, M. Uesugi1, Y. Karouji1, A. Nakato1, K.
Kumagai1 and M. Abe1, 1Institute of Space and Astronautical
Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Introduction: Extraterrestrial Curation Center has been established in JAXA as an inter-university research facility to treat
and care about the samples in extraterrestrial origin or returnedby spacecraft. Currently only samples treated in the center are
those returned from asteroid 25143 Itokawa by Hayabusa. In thefuture, other samples recovered by space missions such as Hayabusa2 and OSIRES-Rex will be treated there. Other kinds of extraterrestrial materials including meteorites or interstellar dust
particles would be managed there to make research more active.
In addition, the center will promote the researchers to utilize its
facility for their own work. There are lessons learned as the first
facility for samples returned from space without contamination,
so that we start investigation to make the policy and rules for its
activity to be defined for more advanced future operation.
Policy: The curation center has its characteristics in sample
curation and analysis for noble samples retrieved by spacecraft
free from contamination of terrestrial atmosphere and materials.
And the center should not only promote and encourage researchers for the new sample analysis but organize the research programwith the samples as well to construct the pig picture of solar system origin and evolution. In view of the continuous work to realize such advantages, the center now starts establishment of therules for its activity in such items: 1) sample pick-up, storage anddelivery, 2) research promotion such as holding international AO,
symposium, and special issues, 3) contamination control, 4) development and maintenance of facility and device, 5) Databaseand archive, 6) inter-university and public relation.
Rules: Most of curation activity must be followed on theprocedures previously experienced and determined, because theprecise and traceable work is required to keep quality of samples
and reliability of research. But some rules exists to make the activity more flexible but credible. For the sample pick-up processes, the materials of tools, devices, and holders which contact thesamples directly are limited definitely (aluminum, stainless steel,gold, Teflon, and silica), only after special cleaning of them. The
environmental atmosphere where samples are exposed are also
controlled (ultra-pure nitrogen or vacuum). All the works should
be conducted in the clean rooms where the particular contamination is kept at a low level and temperature and humidity is controlled. The goods and materials to be entered into the room isconstrained. Number of people working there is limited. Responsibility of AO winners are also defined and described in detailsuch as duration of their work, timing and method of return ofsamples, report in the symposium as well as in the sheet, andpublication policy, from the viewpoint of more productive outputs from them. The samples should be enough reliable andtraceable. These investigation has just begun and further details
will be reported in the presentation.