As a result of its deliberations, the task group was able to reach the following conclusions on appropriate planetary protection measures for future missions to Europa.
All statements express consensus views unless noted otherwise.
Current cleaning and sterilization techniques are satisfactory to meet the needs of future space missions to Europa. The technological drawbacks of current prelaunch sterilization techniques are such that the use of these techniques is likely to increase the complexity and, hence, the cost of a mission. Knowledge of the planetary protection requirements for Europa will be enhanced by the data returned from future missions and the continuing analysis of Galileo observations. The task group recommends that, in addition, a series of scientific and technical investigations be conducted to reduce uncertainty in calculating the probability of contaminating Europa as a result of spacecraft missions. Quantitative results should be compared in order to determine which methods can best extend current culturing techniques.