The policy has three main broad objectives, which are:
- To create a “risk assessment and science-based guidelines” for mitigating what’s been called “forward contamination,” or contamination of other worlds by terrestrial life. This objective also emphasizes the importance of the strategy in the government’s payload review process for private missions.
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- The second objective seeks to avoid “backward contamination,” or potential contamination of the Earth by any extraterrestrial life. This portion of the plan ensures that agencies develop frameworks for assessing risks of sample return missions and other sources of backward contamination, as well as an approval framework for such missions and procedures for safely handling materials returned from beyond Earth.
- The third objective is to seek ways to incorporate private-sector opinion on planetary protection issues given the growing capabilities of, and interest by, companies in flying missions to other worlds, in particular Mars. This would include work by the government to lay out guidelines for the authorization and continuing supervision of private-sector missions to destinations with planetary protection implications.