Austrian And Israeli Scientists Simulate Life On Mars

Illustration of Mars exploration. (Wikimedia Commons/D Mitriy)

JAKARTA - From the door of the expedition base, a few small steps to the left, an autonomous rover passes by. A few giant jumps to the right are rows of solar panels. The landscape is rocky, hilly, dyed red. Deliberately resembling Mars.

Here at Ramon Crater in the southern Israeli desert, a team of six, five men and one woman, 'astronauts' set out to simulate what it would be like to live for about a month on the red planet.

The habitat of their AMADEE-20 Project team is tucked under a rocky outcrop. Inside they sleep, eat, and conduct experiments. Outside, they wear mock spacesuits equipped with cameras, microphones and self-contained breathing systems.

"We have a motto of failing fast, failing cheap, and having a steep learning curve. Because for every mistake we make on this earth, we hope we don't repeat it on Mars," said Austrian Space Forum director Gernot Gromer, citing Reuters Oct. 11.

The Austrian Space Forum is running the project together with the Israel Space Agency and local group D-MARS.

A number of recent Mars probes have captivated astronomy enthusiasts around the world, with rover robots such as NASA's Perseverance and, for the first time, the Ingenuity helicopter, offering glimpses of the planet's surface. But the manned mission is likely more than a decade old.

With AMADEE-20, which was supposed to happen in 2020 but was delayed due to COVID-19, the team hopes to bring new insights that will help prepare for that mission, when it comes.

"The habitat, right now, is the most complex, most modern analog research station on the planet," explains Gromer, standing next to a 120-square-meter (1,300-square-foot) structure shaped like two large connected yurts.

The six team members are constantly in front of the camera, their vital signs are monitored, their movements inside are tracked to analyze favorite places to gather. All of this to better understand the human factor, Gromer said.

Outside, engineers and other specialists are working with drones and rovers to improve autonomous navigation and mapping in a world where GPS is unavailable.

In all they will conduct more than 20 experiments in fields including geology, biology and medicine and hope to publish some of the results when completed.

"We are six people working in a tight space under a lot of pressure to do a lot of tests. There are definitely challenges," said Alon Tenzer, one of the 'astronauts' involved in the study.

"But I trust my crew, that we are able to overcome the challenge," he concluded.