So all these clean-room precautions that you normally see when people work on satellites are what for again?
I thought that was because we don’t want to contaminate space.
I thought that was because we don’t want to contaminate space.
1. Planetary protection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection): life on Earth might be dangerous for that of another planet, if we land on it. That's why for example the Mars rovers are prohibited from driving near areas where we think there might be/have_been life. And that's why Cassini was sent to burn into Jupiter's atmosphere: so that we would not contaminate any of its moons by mistake.
2. Clean-room precautions for satellites are mostly to prevent leaving anything on them that would freeze and burn depending on Sun exposition.
If it was about contaminating space they probably wouldn’t leave so much junk there.