The Living Interplanetary Flight ExperimentAsian Scientist
"Phobos-Grunt Mission Carrying Yinghuo-1 Space Probe Suffers Technical Glitch"
Srinivas Laxman, 9 November 2011 (LIFE or Phobos LIFE) was an

interplanetary mission Interplanetary spaceflight or interplanetary travel is the crewed or uncrewed travel between stars and planets, usually within a single planetary system. In practice, spaceflights of this type are confined to travel between the planets of the S ...

developed by the

Planetary Society The Planetary Society is an American internationally-active non-governmental nonprofit organization. It is involved in research, public outreach, and political space advocacy for engineering projects related to astronomy, planetary science, a ...

. It consisted of sending selected microorganisms on a three-year interplanetary round-trip in a small capsule aboard the Russian

Fobos-Grunt Fobos-Grunt or Phobos-Grunt (russian: link=no, Фобос-Грунт, where ''грунт'' refers to the ''ground'' in the narrow geological meaning of any type of soil or rock exposed on the surface) was an attempted Russian sample return mis ...

spacecraft in 2011, which was a failed sample-return mission to the Martian moon Phobos. The Fobos-Grunt mission failed to leave Earth orbit,Universe Today
"Russian Space Program Prepares for Phobos-Grunt Re-Entry"
David Warmflash, 13 December 2011 and was destroyed. The goal was to test whether selected

organism In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells ( cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and fu ...

s can survive an as yet undetermined number of years in deep space by flying them through interplanetary space. The experiment would have tested one aspect of

transpermia Panspermia () is the hypothesis, first proposed in the 5th century BCE by the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, that life exists throughout the Universe, distributed by space dust, meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and planetoids, as well as by spacecraf ...

, the hypothesis that

life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy ...

could survive space travel, if protected inside rocks blasted by impact off one planet to land on another.

Precursor

Prior to the ''Phobos LIFE'' experiment, a precursor ''LIFE'' prototype was successfully flown in 2011 aboard the final flight of

Space Shuttle Endeavour Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'' ( Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-105) is a retired orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational Shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th ...

STS-134 STS-134 ( ISS assembly flight ULF6) was the penultimate mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the 25th and last spaceflight of . This flight delivered the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier to the Internationa ...

. Known as the Shuttle-LIFE (also LIFE) experiment.SPACE.com
"Salvaging Science from Stricken Mars Moon Probe: A Scientist's View"
David Warmflash, 11 November 2011

The experiment

The project includes representatives of all three domains of life:

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were am ...

eukaryota Eukaryotes () are organisms whose cells have a nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms, are Eukaryotes. They belong to the group of organisms Eukaryota or Eukarya, which is one of the three domains of life. Bacter ...

and

archaea Archaea ( ; singular archaeon ) is a domain of single-celled organisms. These microorganisms lack cell nuclei and are therefore prokaryotes. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (in the Archaeba ...

. The capsule was transporting 10 types of organisms in 30 self-contained samples, i.e., each in triplicate. In addition, one or more natural native soil samples were flown in their own self-contained capsule. The Phobos-Soil sample return mission was the only attempted biological science mission that would have returned to Earth from deep space, far beyond the protection of Earth's magnetic field; sending biological samples through deep space is therefore a much better test of interplanetary survivability than sending the samples on a typical Earth-orbiting flight. The project was being done in collaboration with the Russian Space Research Institute, the Institute for Biomedical Problems of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

, the

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

, the

American Type Culture Collection ATCC or the American Type Culture Collection is a nonprofit organization which collects, stores, and distributes standard reference microorganisms, cell lines and other materials for research and development. Established in 1925 to serve as a nati ...

(ATCC), and the Institute for Aerospace Medicine in Germany.

Specimens

Three fundamental guidelines governed the selection of the organisms: First, the organisms selected represent the three domains of life –

eukaryote Eukaryotes () are organisms whose cells have a nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms, are Eukaryotes. They belong to the group of organisms Eukaryota or Eukarya, which is one of the three domains of life. Bacter ...

and

. Second, the organisms are very well studied (e.g., having their

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ...

sequenced and studied in many other experiments) to make it possible to accurately assess the effects of the long exposure to space. If they had already been studied in space conditions so much the better, since it would enable researchers to pinpoint precisely how organisms were affected by the years-long exposure to the interplanetary environment. Finally, a strong preference was given to organisms that appear to stand the best chance of surviving the journey. These are

extremophile An extremophile (from Latin ' meaning "extreme" and Greek ' () meaning "love") is an organism that is able to live (or in some cases thrive) in extreme environments, i.e. environments that make survival challenging such as due to extreme tem ...

s, organisms that thrive in conditions that would kill the vast majority of Earthly creatures. The 10 'passenger' organisms selected are listed below:

Bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were am ...

*''

Bacillus safensis ''Bacillus safensis'' is a Gram-positive, spore-forming, and rod bacterium, originally isolated from a spacecraft in Florida and California. ''B. safensis'' could have possibly been transported to the planet Mars on spacecraft Opportunity and S ...

'' **Discovered in JPL's 'clean' room: Spacecraft Assembly Facility.The Planetary Report, Volume XXIX, number 2, March/April 2009, "We make it happen! Who will survive? Ten hardy organisms selected for the LIFE project, by Amir Alexander https://www.planetary.org/planetary-report/tpr-2009-2 Might already be on Mars with Spirit and

Opportunity Opportunity may refer to: Places * Opportunity, Montana, an unincorporated community, United States * Opportunity, Nebraska, an unincorporated community, United States * Opportunity, Washington, a former census-designated place, United States * ...

. *'' Deinococcus radiodurans'' **Is extremely resistant to radiation, can survive a dose of 5,000 Gy. *''

Bacillus subtilis ''Bacillus subtilis'', known also as the hay bacillus or grass bacillus, is a Gram-positive, catalase-positive bacterium, found in soil and the gastrointestinal tract of ruminants, humans and marine sponges. As a member of the genus ''Bacillus ...

'' ** strain 168: common strain used in biology. ** strain MW01: UV-resistant strain evolved from 168. Part of EXPOSE-E. ** This species is well known from other astrobiological experiments. It has flown to the Moon with Apollo and had multiyear exposure in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...

Archaea Archaea ( ; singular archaeon ) is a domain of single-celled organisms. These microorganisms lack cell nuclei and are therefore prokaryotes. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (in the Archaeba ...

*'' Haloarcula marismortui'' **If Mars had an ocean, it would have been very salty. ''H. marismortui'' is

halophilic The halophiles, named after the Greek word for "salt-loving", are extremophiles that thrive in high salt concentrations. While most halophiles are classified into the domain Archaea, there are also bacterial halophiles and some eukaryotic species, ...

. *''

Methanothermobacter In taxonomy, ''Methanothermobacter'' is a genus of the Methanobacteriaceae.See the NCBIbr>webpage on Methanothermobacter Data extracted from the The species within this genus are thermophilic and grow best at temperatures between 55°C and ...

wolfeii'' **

Mars Express ''Mars Express'' is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA). The ''Mars Express'' mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. "Express" originally ref ...

has discovered methane in the Martian atmosphere. ''M. wolfeii'' is a methane-producing organism. *''

Pyrococcus furiosus ''Pyrococcus furiosus'' is a heterotrophic, strictly anaerobic, extremophilic, model species of archaea. It is classified as a hyperthermophile because it thrives best under extremely high temperatures, and is notable for having an optimum gr ...

'' **''P. furiosus'' thrives at about 100 °C, it was supposed to act as a maximum temperature indicator.

Eukaryote Eukaryotes () are organisms whose cells have a nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms, are Eukaryotes. They belong to the group of organisms Eukaryota or Eukarya, which is one of the three domains of life. Bacter ...

Fungus A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately fr ...

– ''

Saccharomyces cerevisiae ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'' () (brewer's yeast or baker's yeast) is a species of yeast (single-celled fungus microorganisms). The species has been instrumental in winemaking, baking, and brewing since ancient times. It is believed to have b ...

'' (yeast) *

Plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae excl ...

ae – Seeds from ''

Arabidopsis thaliana ''Arabidopsis thaliana'', the thale cress, mouse-ear cress or arabidopsis, is a small flowering plant native to Eurasia and Africa. ''A. thaliana'' is considered a weed; it is found along the shoulders of roads and in disturbed land. A winter ...

'' ('mouse-ear cress') **Flew to the Moon with Apollo. *

Animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage ...

ia –

Tardigrade Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them Kleiner Wasserb� ...

s ('water bears') **Have survived vacuum and radiation in low Earth orbit.

Capsule design

The mass of the Bio-Module on board the Fobos-Grunt spacecraft was 100 grams or less. The design is a short

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an ...

. The bio-module provided 30 small tubes (3 millimeters in diameter) for individual microbe samples. It also accommodated a native sample of bacteria – derived from a

permafrost Permafrost is ground that continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years, located on land or under the ocean. Most common in the Northern Hemisphere, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface ...

region on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...

– within a cavity 26 mm in diameter.

Mission failure

The module passed stress tests including a shake test with vibrations at frequencies to 1,100 Hz and an impact test of 4,000 g, designed to simulate the potential impact of the capsule on Earth. The LIFE experiment was launched on November 8, 2011 on board the

. However, the spacecraft failed to depart Earth orbit due to a programming error, and fell back to Earth in the Pacific Ocean.RIA Novosti
"Phobos-Grunt mission ‘impossible,’ says chief designer"
13 December 2011 The module was not recovered. The team is seeking out future exploratory opportunities.

References

External links

* The Planetary Society
Shuttle LIFE
* The Planetary Society
Phobos LIFE
* The Planetary Society
LIFE
{{astrobiology Fobos-Grunt Space science experiments Cancelled astrobiology space missions The Planetary Society Life in space