Have they been sterilized

Scientists explain the survival of microbes in "clean rooms" and interplanetary probes

Sergey Vasiliev, Naked Science

The microflora of the "clean rooms", where interplanetary probes are being prepared, turned out to be able to survive by eating antiseptics and cleaning products.

Developers are doing their best to sterilize interplanetary probes so as not to accidentally bring the earth's microflora to other celestial bodies – especially since in some cases microbes are able to distort the chemical analysis data that such devices carry out. NASA probes are assembled in "clean rooms", where a whole arsenal of different sterilization methods is used. Nevertheless, even there its own special microflora is found, containing representatives of archaea, bacteria and fungi.

One of the most notable groups among them are bacteria Acinetobacter. A new work conducted by professors of California State Polytechnic University in Pomona (CPP) Mogul Rakesh, Gregory Barding and a large team of their students is dedicated to them. The authors presented their results in an article published in the journal Astrobiology (Rakesh et al., Metabolism and Biodegradation of Spacecraft Cleaning Reagents by Strains of Spacecraft-Associated Acinetobacter).

The scientists studied several strains of acinetobacteria that were isolated in the "clean rooms" where work was carried out on the Mars Odyssey and Phoenix probes. It was found that in conditions of severe nutrient deficiency, some of the strains are able to survive by decomposing... antiseptic agents that were used by NASA engineers. They can exist using even isopropyl alcohol, ethanol or the popular Kleenol 30 cleaner as a carbon source.

Based on this, according to the authors, more attention should be paid to the problem of sterilization of interplanetary vehicles, more effective means and methods should be selected – and at least introduce a procedure for constant rotation of cleaning and antiseptic agents, not allowing microbes to adapt to them.

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