Europan Molecular Indicators of Life Investigation (EMILI) for a Future Europa Lander Mission

The Europan Molecular Indicators of Life Investigation (EMILI) is an instrument concept being developed for the Europa Lander mission currently under study. EMILI will meet and exceed the scientific and technical/resource requirements of the organic composition analyzer identified as a core instrument on the Lander. EMILI tightly couples two complementary analytical techniques, based on 1) liquid extraction and processing with capillary electrophoresis and 2) thermal and chemical extraction with gas chromatography, to robustly detect, structurally characterize, and quantify the broadest range of organics and other Europan chemicals over widely-varying concentrations. Dual processing and analysis paths enable EMILI to perform a thorough characterization of potential molecular biosignatures and contextual compounds in collected surface samples. Here we present a summary of the requirements, design, and development status of EMILI with projected scientific opportunities on the Europa Lander as well as on other potential life detection missions seeking potential molecular biosignatures in situ.

Optical Design of a Quantitative Microvolume Nucleic Acid Spectrophotometer with Non-Optical Fiber and All Radiation-Hardened Lens Elements

The purity of the nucleic acid samples obtained by extraction/precipitation or adsorption chromatography must be verified with microvolume spectrophotometry to ensure a high success rate of the subsequent nucleic acid sequencing while exploring the trace rare nucleic acids in space exploration with in-situ life detection. This paper reports an optical design for a radiation-hardened quantitative microvolume spectrophotometer with all radiation-hardened lens elements for space exploration instruments by using a non-optical fiber optical path with radiation-hardened optical glass elements. The results showed that the mean absolute error rate of the measured standard ribonucleic acid samples at concentrations between 50 ng/μL and 2300 ng/μL was within 2% when compared with a LINKO LKU–6000 ultraviolet–visible spectrophotometer.

Contamination Control for Ultra-Sensitive Life-Detection Missions

A key science priority for planetary exploration is to search for signs of life in our Solar System. Life-detection mission concepts aim to assess whether or not biomolecular signatures of life are present, which requires highly sensitive instrumentation. This introduces greater risk of false positives, and perhaps false negatives. Stringent science-derived contamination requirements for achieving science measurements on life-detection missions necessitate mitigation approaches that minimize, protect from, and prevent science-relevant contamination of critical surfaces of the science payload and provide high confidence to life-detection determinations. To this end, we report on technology advances that focus on understanding contamination transfer from pre-launch processing to end of mission using high-fidelity physics in the form of computational fluid dynamics and sorption physics for monolayer adsorption/desorption, and on developing a new full-spacecraft bio-molecular barrier design that restricts contamination of the spacecraft and instruments by the launch vehicle hardware. The bio-molecular barrier isolates the spacecraft from biological, molecular, and particulate contamination from the external environment. Models were used to evaluate contamination transport for a designs reference mission that utilizes the barrier. Results of the modeling verify the efficacy of the barrier and an in-cruise decontamination activity. Overall mission contamination tracking from launch to science operations demonstrated exceptionally low probability on contamination impacting science measurements, meeting the stringent contamination requirements of femtomolar levels of compounds. These advances will enable planetary missions that aim to detect and identify signatures of life in our Solar System.

Planetary Mass Spectrometry for Agnostic Life Detection in the Solar System

For the past fifty years of space exploration, mass spectrometry has provided unique chemical and physical insights on the characteristics of other planetary bodies in the Solar System. A variety of mass spectrometer types, including magnetic sector, quadrupole, time-of-flight, and ion trap, have and will continue to deepen our understanding of the formation and evolution of exploration targets like the surfaces and atmospheres of planets and their moons. An important impetus for the continuing exploration of Mars, Europa, Enceladus, Titan, and Venus involves assessing the habitability of solar system bodies and, ultimately, the search for life—a monumental effort that can be advanced by mass spectrometry. Modern flight-capable mass spectrometers, in combination with various sample processing, separation, and ionization techniques enable sensitive detection of chemical biosignatures. While our canonical knowledge of biosignatures is rooted in Terran-based examples, agnostic approaches in astrobiology can cast a wider net, to search for signs of life that may not be based on Terran-like biochemistry. Here, we delve into the search for extraterrestrial chemical and morphological biosignatures and examine several possible approaches to agnostic life detection using mass spectrometry. We discuss how future missions can help ensure that our search strategies are inclusive of unfamiliar life forms.

NOMENCLATURE ANALYSIS OF MEDICINES PREPARED BY PHARMACIES OF RUE «BELPHARMATSIYA»

The article is devoted to the nomenclature analysis of medicines prepared at 21 pharmacies of the 1^st category of RUE «BELPHARMATSIYA», the largest state pharmacy network in Minsk. Medicines preparation at pharmacies is carried out according to the doctors’ prescriptions and the requirements (applications) of healthcare organizations as well as in the form of intra-pharmacy stocking and packing. The main tasks of pharmacy preparation are: providing the population and healthcare organizations with dosage forms not manufactured by industry, preparation of dosage forms mainly used in pediatric and geriatric practice, individual pharmacotherapy provision. Pharmacists make from 38 to 174 dosage forms in one day. The nomenclature of the medicines prepared numbers 392most common prescriptions of which 47,2% prescriptions are unique: they were prepared by one pharmacy only. The most prevalent (42,8%) is preparation of complex in composition dosage forms which contain at least 4 ingredients. Therefore, there is an urgent question about the stability of dosage forms and shelf life detection (currently, the legislation hasn’t established shelf life of medicines prepared at pharmacy). The assortment of active ingredients and excipients has been analyzed. There are cases of medicines preparation from industrial medicines. The need for almost 100 names of active ingredients has been established. Nomenclature analysis of the prescriptions has confirmed the importance of medicines preparation development at a pharmacy to provide the population with medicines.