The University of Aberdeen’s School of Geosciences has designed an exploratory device that will travel aboard the much-anticipated ExoMars mission in 2022

A few years ago, American author Andy Weir asked Professor Javier Martin-Torres to read his novel, The Martian, in the interests of factual accuracy. He didn’t get quite the response he was hoping for: “I said I was sorry but the first thing I’d noticed was the description of a huge gale which would not be possible in the thin atmosphere of Mars,” recalls the theoretical physicist.

Too late – Weir had just sold the rights for the film, which was released in 2015 starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain and went on to gross more than $589 million. 

“Not all of the scenes were scientifically accurate but he did a favour to planetary science, as interest in Mars has dramatically increased since then,” says Martin-Torres, who has worked in the US at Nasa’s Langley Research Center; the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena; the Lunar and Planetary Institute at the University of Arizona; and Luleå University of Technology in Sweden.

The Herald:

Professor Javier Martin-Torres, Aberdeen University

He now heads the recently established Planetary Sciences Group at the University of Aberdeen’s School of Geosciences, a group that’s part of current and future missions to Mars with an instrument on Nasa’s Curiosity rover and having developed a device called HABIT (Habitability: Brines, Irradiation and Temperature) that is scheduled to travel aboard the ExoMars mission in 2022.

The project was due to launch this year but the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia’s Roscosmos state space agency announced in March that more time was needed to complete testing, for example, on the all-important parachutes designed to slow the descent of the rover as it hurtles through Mars’ atmosphere at speeds of up to 13,000mph.

Inevitably, the rapid spread of Covid-19 inevitably also played a part in delaying the project with scientists and engineers in Russia, Italy, France and the UK unable to travel overseas.

The pandemic, however, presented another unexpected challenge – and opportunity – for the team at Aberdeen. Using their expertise in the development of life-support systems for manned space missions they set about  building the ATMO-Vent (Atmospheric Mixture Optimisation Ventilator) for hospitals, using certified and commercially available low-cost components.

“We designed the ATMO-Vent in response to worldwide efforts to produce more ventilators for Covid-19 patients, using our experience in developing instruments for Earth and planetary exploration to build a device suited for rapid deployment in healthcare settings worldwide,” says Martin-Torres. 

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Last month, the university signed an agreement with a medical device company in Rwanda that will assemble the ATMO-Vent for use in hospital settings there and neighbouring countries.

Dr Dave Muirhead, head of the university’s School of Geosciences, said: “The arrival of the Planetary Science Group in Aberdeen is an extremely exciting development for the School of Geosciences and the university.

“Their skill in building high-quality instruments for use in planetary research is already world-renowned and it is to their credit that they have used them to offer assistance in the Covid-19 effort.” 

Martin-Torres adds: “From the inception of the idea we were able to begin work on it within a week.”

And while he stresses that the primary aim of the project was to help people affected by Covid-19, the team learned a lot in the process of designing the ATMO-Vent, training in technology that could potentially be used for sustaining human life on the Moon and on Mars. 

“Looking beyond the current crisis, there is also the potential to scale the design for space applications by using it to implement and control artificial atmospheres, for example in space greenhouses and artificial habitats for future planetary explorations,” Martin-Torres says. 

The other component vital for such missions is a source of water. The HABIT instrument was selected by the ESA to be one of two European instruments on board the ExoMars Surface Platform, used to evaluate if liquid water can exist on the planet – and for how long – and an in-situ device to produce liquid water for future Mars exploration. 

Aberdeen’s approach to multi-disciplinary study, engaging in research with emphasis on ground and space-borne instrumentation and focusing on remote sensing, radiation, atmospheric studies and planetary exploration was, says Martin-Torres, a key reason for bringing the Planetary Sciences Group to the city.

And until there is that breakthrough manned mission to Mars, which he thinks could be achieved within the next 40 years, there’s much to be learned at the University of Aberdeen from studying analogous regions of our own planet, such as the high Andean plateau of Chile’s northern Atacama Desert, which might prove a better refuge for Martian astronauts than the surface habitat (Hab) that Mark Watney (Damon) finds himself stranded in. 

As for his cultivation of potatoes in the Hab, that presented another anomaly for Martin-Torres when reading Andy Weir’s novel. “The temperature on Mars can vary by 120° Celsius between day and night which would prove something of a problem in growing food,” he says.