In preparation for a human mission to Mars, six astronauts have recently spent three weeks in isolation, from October 11 to 31, at a simulated Martian base where they carried out different experiments.
A La Prensa Latina report specified that the said astronauts were isolated specifically in the middle of the Negev Desert in Israel. Their experiment was part of a program further preparations for the mission to the Red Planet, although the date remains undetermined.
The conclusion of the AMADEE-20 mission, which had been deferred by the COVID-19 pandemic, represents the latest experiment by the Austrian Space Forum, one of the major institutions dedicated to anticipating, not to mention learning how to face obstacles to a future interplanetary crewed mission.
The director of the Forum, Gernot Gromer said, "this is a milestone," an initial step on the way to the Red Planet. He added this 13th such mission his institution mounted was the largest, most extensive, and most multifaceted mission that humans have ever seen because 200 individuals from over 25 nations took part in it.
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An astronaut from a team from Europe and Israel walks dressed in a spacesuit prepares to enter a sealed habitat during a training mission for planet Mars at a site that simulates an off-site station at the Ramon Crater in Mitzpe Ramon in Israel's southern Negev desert on October 10, 2021.
6-Person Team
When it comes to choosing the Mitzpe Ramon crater, with a 40-kilometer width and 500-meter depth, Interesting Engineering reported, Gromer said it is one of the best sites on this planet "to simulate Mars" and that, even though it exhibits similar geological features, thee are evident differences.
For example, the air on Earth is breathable. More so, the daily temperatures, as well as the force of gravity, are quite different from the characteristics of mars.
Opposite the past missions, the base at which astronauts were in isolation was totally sealed off, which made it possible for them to work in-depth on psychological questions that would transpire on a years-long mission to Mars, and group dynamics quite different from the scientific investigations the team carried out in the areas of geology, engineering, biology, and medicine.
The six-person team comprising one each from Austria, Israel, The Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, and Spain, stayed in contact with a group known as "Mission Control" in Innsbruck Austria although they could communicate only through text messages with a time delay of 10 minutes, therefore duplicating the delay that Earth-Mars communications will encounter.
The Mission
According to the mission's second-in-command, Spaniard Iñigo Muñoz-Elorza, they've had a task that combines "isolation and the psychological burden that that implies," with extremely advanced technologies on the virtual learning backgrounds for spacewalks. He told a media firm this after leaving the habitat without wearing a spacesuit, the first time in three weeks.
Muñoz-Elorza added that their spacesuit simulator is one of the most advanced when it comes to analogous missions, not to mention, they've had the backing of various rovers and drones so they could fly around and be able to develop a progressive map of the zone surrounding the habitat, where they then "did some science."
The habitat for this particular mission was constructed by D-Mars, a company in Israel, in collaboration with the Israel Space Agency and comprised two structures. These include one that has six bunks, a small kitchen, and a tiny living room, and the other, a bit larger, loaded with communications equipment, computers, cables, and scientific devices, where the team carried out its experiments and outfitted with a 3D printer to show spare parts for tools that could break down.
Focus on Testing the Spacesuit
Mission commander Joao Lousada of Portugal said the focus of this project was on testing the spacesuit that weighed 50 kilograms and which needed two hours to get into testing procedures for geological discovery and the detection of living organisms. It also aims to investigate the amount of contamination that the activities of the astronauts created within the habitat and the area around it.
This kind of mission is essential as it enables them to test the equipment, the experiments, as well as the procedures they want to utilize one day on the Red Planet, to discover beforehand here on Earth all the problems, everything that could go wrong, before sending their missions to the Red Planet, Lousada explained.
Lousada added that the first human mission to Mars would depend on international cooperation and will. However, he admitted that it should not have to be delayed by more than two or three decades based on the current technology.
Report about this preparation for a Mars mission in Negev Desert is shown on Advantage Austria's YouTube video below:
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