A team of engineers, physicists and astrobiologists has been using Alpine ice caves to test space suits and other apparatus -- including rovers, 3D cameras and communications systems -- intended for use on Mars.
The five day "mission" in the ice caves found in the Dachstein region of Austria was conducted by the Austrian Space Forum, along with 11 international research partners. The mission put the Aouda.X spacesuit, designed specifically to simulate the conditions of Mars, to the test. Physicist Daniel Schildhammer wore the suit while he collected samples in the ice caves.
The 45kg kevlar suit with an aluminium coating mimics the conditions that a real Mars spacesuit would provide during a walk on the surface of the planet, such as weight, pressure, and limited sensory input. It has a modifiable exoskeleton to simulate pressure on all of the human joints including the fingers. It also has an advanced biomonitoring interface, which provides real-time information about the astronaut's heart rate, body temperature and carbon dioxide and oxygen levels. These are projected onto a video screen in the helmet's visor as well as being sent to mission control. Any astronaut to walk on Mars would have to have access to this real-time information as any message sent back to Earth would have a time dalay of 26 minutes, meaning it would take almost an hour to receive any commands or advice in the event of a problem.
The mission also provided an opportunity to test rovers such as Asimov, the brainchild of 100 German scientists, engineers and developers who formed an organisation called the Part-Time Scientists in a bid to win the Google Lunar X Prize. A second rover, Magma White, was also sent down into the caves to test the Wisdom radar system, which is due to be used on the next European Mars mission in 2018. The radar can analyse rocks to a depth of around three metres, and ice to around ten metres. Other instruments that were trialled in the caves include 3D cameras and communications systems. They also conducted simulated astrobiology experiments by drilling into the ice to collect samples.
The location was selected because ice caves are likely to be a natural refuge for any microbes that might exist on the red planet. Gernot Groemer, president of the Austrian Space Forum, explained that if there does happen to be life on Mars, it would likely be in the planet's lava canals -- a network of underground caves in the planet's basalt interior that were carved out during ancient volcanic eruptions. These ice caves would provide consistent temperatures and shielding from cosmic rays.
The mission is now over, although another large scale test will take place in February 2013 in the Sahara desert.
This is not the first time that space exploration has been rehearsed on Earth. In June 2010 a team of six astronauts were locked in a shed in a reasearch facility in Moscow, where they spent eight months simulating a journey to Mars, before spending a few days "exploring the planet" and then jumping back into the windowless capsule for the eight month return journey.
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