Mars Desert Research Station
Expedition 3


On February 18, 2007 myself and five other crew members successfully
completed Expedition Three (ExThree) or Crew 57, the third research-class mission of the Expedition Mars Analogue
Research Series (ExMARS) program run by Mars Society Canada (MSC) and the Mars Expedition Research Council (MERC). ExThree comprised of crew members from Canada and the US, who lived and worked at the Mars Society’s (MS) Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) from Feb. 3rd to Feb. 18th 2007, in southern Utah.





Background

The MDRS is a facility intended to support Mars analogue
field studies. A Mars analogue is any environment that has features similar to what is found on Mars (in terms of geology and topography). MDRS is one of a series of stations offering researchers the opportunity to carry out their work in a remote, Mars-like environment to better understand how people will be able to live and work effectively on the Red Planet. This covers both the physical setting of Mars, as well as design considerations for technological challenges and scenarios for human activity.

Internationally, there is considerable interest for conducting
the human exploration of Mars within the next twenty to fifty years. The United States, European Space Agency, and Russia are all directing science goals and funding towards the human and robotic exploration of the solar system, beginning with the exploration of the Moon as an operational analogue for Mars and other bodies.











This is a great painting of the photo above by my friend Mike Keen



Plans for mission architectures like the
NASA Reference Mission do not consider how exploration would be done most efficiently on Mars to maximize the science return. Rather, engineering constraints determine what the scientist-astronauts may do. A better approach would be to research what the requirements for the scientific exploration of Mars would be, and use them to design exploration strategies that inform engineering decisions and expedition planning. From an operational perspective, we do not yet know how to conduct a Mars expedition so that it maximizes the scientific output. This is the information that is being gathered at the MDRS test bed.






This area of study includes operational research,
exploration technology, human factors and work-process efficiency studies adapted from industrial engineering techniques, while simultaneously studying the conduct of field science such a geological, geophysical and biological investigation of a Mars analogue setting.






Click to see the large panoramic


WHY MARS?

A world with a surface area the size of the combined continents of the Earth,
the Red Planet contains all the elements needed to support life. As such it is the Rosetta stone for revealing whether the
phenomenon of life is something unique to the Earth, or prevalent in the universe. The exploration of Mars may also tell us whether life as we find it on Earth is the model for life elsewhere, or whether we are just a small part of a much vaster and more varied tapestry. Moreover, as the nearest planet with all the required resources for technological civilization, Mars will be the decisive trial that will determine whether humanity can expand from its globe of origin to enjoy the open frontiers and unlimited prospects available to multi-planet spacefaring species. Offering profound enlightenment to our science, inspiration and purpose to our youth, and a potentially unbounded future for our posterity, the challenge of Mars is one that we must embrace.






Expedition Three

On ExThree, several projects were carried out in support of FMARS2007, a four-month Mars analogue mission
to the Canadian Arctic from May 1 to August 31, 2007. These projects included "Microbial Niche Mapping", field documentation methodology, development of a relational database and data cataloguing methodology for consolidating and archiving scientific data acquired at FMARS and other Mars analogue facilities such as MDRS, EuroMARS and MARS-Oz. Furthermore, a satisfaction survey was conducted on a selected brand of freeze dried food to assist future crews in meal planning for extended expeditions such as FMARS2007. In addition, ExThree continued works initiated on previous MDRS missions in the areas of WiFi testing and expedition psychology. Finally, ExThree was the first ExMARS mission to demonstrate the high effectiveness of structured training programs such as MSC's Expedition Mars Analogue Training Series program for training new recruits for research-class expeditions. 



                                                  Crewmembers from left to right
             Top row:
                    Chief Engineer – Jon Pineau, space systems engineer for Stellar Solutions (Golden, Colorado, USA)
                    Commander – Lealem Mulugeta, space systems mechanical engineer (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)
                    Geologist – Melissa Battler, planetary geologist (Roseville, Ontario, Canada)
             Bottom row:
                    Executive Officer – Danielle Cormier, CSA Canada Arm Controller (Amos, Quebec, Canada)
                    Field Engineer – Randall Shelaga, Aerospace Engineer (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
                    Biologist – Olathe Clark, environmental biologist (Lake St. Peter, Ontario, Canada)




During the two week mission the six
of us lived as if we were on Mars. The Habitat and extravehicular activity (EVA) suits were not pressurized, but were used to simulate the resources and limitations of doing science and operations far from the safety of Earth. Days were long. It was usual to work from 7:30am to midnight every day trying to keep the Habitat (Hab) running and filling out reports. However, through the hard work we built strong friendships and had a lot of fun! I personally used the experience as a unique perspective for designing human space vehicles and as training for applying to become an astronaut.







During the "sim" phase of ExThree, crew meals
consisted of Mountain House freeze-dried foods supplemented by fresh vegetables from the GreenHab, the greenhouse and gray water treatment structure. It was found that the freeze-dried meals were very efficient requiring very little time and effort for preparation and cleanup. This gave us more time to work on our various tasks and fully enjoy our breaks to eat and discuss many intriguing space topics. Surprisingly the entire crew enjoyed the food. While it did not compare to fresh food, the meals consistently got high ratings in our satisfaction survey. This was especially true when vegetables such as arugula, cilantro, radishes, beats, garlic, and others were added from the GreenHab making it easy to envision tolerating freeze-dried food for extended missions.










Engineering

The engineering team, including myself, ensured the overall proper functioning
of the Hab and all mission-critical systems - most importantly, power, water and transportation. Yes, it is much like facility
engineering, but someone has to do it, even in space. We also supported the researchers with any project-specific hardware, software, and EVA equipment. When safety could be preserved, engineering projects were conducted in-simulation. This imposed additional limitations and restrictions to operations such as working in a bulky EVA suit and having limited access to tools, materials, and information.






In addition to many other projects and repairs,
the ExThree engineering team spent the majority of their mission repairing the ATVs, which were used to simulate “Mars rovers” for astronaut transportation, and maintaining the Habitat life support and waste recycling systems. Several days were devoted to the ATVs including clearing out the layers of mud, dust, and oil out of fuel and air systems from hard desert use, making repairs, and tuning.

The GreenHab also received a lot of attention, resulting in
healthy crops, which were harvested regularly for fresh salads, and water hyacinths that helped produce clear odorless water for flushing the toilets. Much time was spent in making waste water processing a hands-off system. A float valves, pumps, and filters were replaced, enabling the crew to cleanly make use of the gray water recycling system with very limited intervention.






Several Habitat improvement projects were
also accomplished. To improve morale the Habitat bathroom received an overhaul. A wall mounted rack was also constructed for mounting a set of DC/DC converters for the Hab power system. The Habitat got its power from a diesel generator that charged a bank of batteries and unfortunately transferring between the two sources was a manual process. This made for some tight situations where we tried to maximize use of the entire battery range. Once the generator unexpectedly quit while I was on a long EVA. This required the crew to drastically reduce power until I could get back and fix the problem. Even with the finicky system we luckily never lost power to the Hab during the two week mission.








Biology and Geology:

On this rotation Crew Geologist, Melissa Battler, and Crew Biologist, Olathe Clark,
worked on a cross-over between the Regolith-Landform Mapping and Microbial Survey projects. This project is called
"Microbial Niche Mapping" and is focused on site-scale mapping of regolith-landforms at Mars-analog sites for microbial communities. Microbes of interest in this study are halophiles and endoliths. The ultimate goal is to determine a method of using remote sensing data to choose sample locations on Mars, based on analogous landforms and environments found to contain microorganisms adapted to Mars-like conditions found on Earth.











The science team visited previous halophile
sample sites, documented them using Sklar FDM (Field Documentation Methodology) and performed regolith-landform characterization. Samples of rocks, minerals, and soil were collected for analysis. It was found that sites of microbial colonization can be recognized on a macroscopic level in the field, within specific geologic units; therefore the microbial/regolith-landform mapping could be continued at an accelerated rate through remote sensing data and field observations alone.
These links will provide more information on:
CSA Mars Exploration Missions
MDRS Main Site


Well that is all until next time.
As always if you would like to see any other
pictures of specific parts of the experience,
or want higher resolution copies of what are
on the web site, just let me know. Also,
don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions.

jon.pineau@colorado.edu

Return to the MDRS Mission page here




and this was after only 2 weeks...