mars project

Mars Analogue Research Station (MARS), Arkaroola, SA

Ten undergraduate students from the Faculty of Science at UTS have been given a once in a lifetime opportunity to participate in a series of experiments to prepare for humans visiting or even living on Mars.

Daniel, Michael K, Katie, Ben, John

In order to help develop key knowledge needed to prepare for human Mars exploration, and to inspire the public to embrace the vision of human exploration of Mars, NASA and the International Mars Society have initiated the Mars Analogue Research Station (MARS) project – a global program of Mars exploration operations research. The MARS project will include four Mars base-like habitats located in deserts in the Canadian Arctic, the American southwest, Iceland and the Australian outback – heralded as the most "Mars-like" environment in the world! In these environments, a program of extensive geology and biology field exploration operations will be conducted in the same style and under many of the same constraints as they would on the Red Planet. By doing so, we will start the process of learning how to explore and live on Mars.

The current venture (deemed "Expedition Two", taking place between 1st – 25th August) is the second in a series of fifteen pre-planned expeditions to Mars analogue locations worldwide – it is the first in Australia. The long-term objective of the expeditions is to develop the strategies and technologies that will result in a successful “Humans to Mars” mission. The goals of Expedition Two will be to carry out a wide range of research projects in a 200 km radius of Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia. There will be four main themes to the research: collecting baseline geological and environmental data, carrying out Mars-mission related engineering analogue research, human factors studies, and public outreach (publicity) with respect to human exploration of Mars.

UTS Involvement

Our dedicated team of 10 students and 3 research supervisors from UTS has been invited to conduct several exciting research experiments as part of the Arkaroola expedition, all aimed at putting humans on Mars.

Diary of the expedition.

Click here for their itinerary and the media release