Tanpopo cosmic dust collector: Silica aerogel production and bacterial   DNA contamination analysis
  Hydrophobic silica aerogels with ultra-low densities have been designed and developed as cosmic dust capture media for the Tanpopo mission which is proposed to be carried out on the International Space Station. Glass particles as a simulated cosmic dust with 30 \mu m in diameter and 2.4 g/cm^3 in density were successfully captured by the novel aerogel at a velocity of 6 km/s. Background levels of contaminated DNA in the ultra-low density aerogel were lower than the detection limit of a polymerase chain reaction assay. These results show that the manufactured aerogel has good performance as a cosmic dust collector and sufficient quality in respect of DNA contamination. The aerogel is feasible for the biological analyses of captured cosmic dust particles in the astrobiological studies. 
Makoto Tabata, Yuko Kawaguchi, Shin-ichi Yokobori, Hideyuki Kawai,   Jun-ichi Takahashi, Hajime Yano, Akihiko Yamagishi
physics.ins-det astro-ph.EP astro-ph.IM