ASTRONAUTS are to spend a month in the barren Arabian desert in searing heat to simulate life on Mars.
They will carry out a series of experiments in extreme conditions similar to what they can expect to experience on the Red Planet’s surface.
The group of six astronauts will begin four weeks of isolation in the Dhofar Desert in Oman on Thursday.
The mission is led by the Austrian Space Forum, headed up by Dr Gernot Grömer. He said: “Through testing equipment, software, procedures and workflows that will be implemented in future human missions to Mars we try to find out what is not yet working, what needs to be redesigned, rethought.
“After all, it’s better to find the flaw in Mars equipment here on Earth rather than on Mars where spare parts are a six-month journey away at best.”
The test site is a 120-square mile area of desert similar to the surface of Mars.
A spokesman for the Austrian Space Forum said: “The deserts of Dhofar have a resemblance to various Mars surface features, such as sedimentary structures dating back to the Paleocene and Eocene, salt domes of the South Oman Salt Basin and ancient river beds.
“The test site offers a wide range of sand and rocky surfaces combined with a broad variability in inclination.”
The astronauts will test rovers, drones, 3D printers, an inflatable hydroponic greenhouse, the abrasion of a space suit glove outer layer, and their own mental fatigue during the mission. Communication between the Mission Support Centre and the field crew will be time-delayed to simulate the conditions of a Mars expedition.
The project is expected to cost around 500,000 euros, covered mainly by donations from industry partners.
Grömer believes the first person to set foot on Mars may already have been born and he anticipates a mission to the Red Planet may be carried out by a coalition of astronauts from Europe, the United States, Russia, and China. He sees the experiment in Oman as a window into the future.
Grömer added: “What we're going to see here…is going to be a sneak preview into the future.”
US space agency NASA is currently testing an affordable fission nuclear power system which could run processing equipment to transform Red Planet resources into oxygen, water and fuel.
Patrick McClure, project lead on the Kilopower work at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, said: “A space nuclear reactor could provide a high-energy density power source with the ability to operate independent of solar energy or orientation, and the ability to operate in extremely harsh environments, such as the Martian surface.”
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