In a real Mars mission, mission support functions as the primary channel of communication between researchers
in the field (at the base, on rover trips or EVA) and their technical and general support teams on earth. A Mars
mission control will face constraints which differ from those experienced in
lunar and earth orbit missions, including substantial delays in transmission time, and much longer mission duration.
The realistic undertaking of simulated Mars missions on earth requires the formation of a parallel mission support team,
operating in a similar role. An F-Mars Mission support team
was formed to support the Mars Society's Devon Island analogue research station,
with another group serving as the
MDRS Mission Support Team for the first Desert Research Station field season this year.
More information will be posted about the proposed Australian base mission control project
when the field testing of the Marsupial Analogue Rover commences.
Mars Analogue Helmet Systems
The University of Sydney's Faculty of Engineering as part of it Advanced
Engineering Program will be tasking a group of young engineers to design and
construct a Mars Analogue Helmet System for Project MarsSkin. A team
has been formed of 5 1st year students and 2 supervisors. This system will
incorporate some of the latest technology in
the fields of wearable computing and image recognition and will be used in
EVA activities during Operation Red Centre as an integral part of
MarsSkin-1. The helmet is being developed under the guidance of
from the School of Electrical Engineering, PhD student
and MSA member
.
Tools and Applications for Martian Exploration and Research (TAMER)
The Software Engineering
Research Centre at RMIT (in
association with the Smart
Internet Technology CRC) are interested in the infrastructure
required to support the work of a small group of researchers and
explorers on Mars. The solutions must minimise the impact of the
extremely hostile environment and the long highly variable delays in
communication on the explorers.
The project currently includes a tool and infrastructure to search for
information, a tool to support the recording of
experiments/exploration, a tool to manage a changing mission plan and a
tool to manage large volumes of electronic correspondence.
Our aim is to produce an infrastructure, tools and devices that can be
used in the Mars Analog Programs of the Mars Societies. Some of the
work is related to, but currently independent from, work on the Mars
Exploration (MEX) project.
Researchers - Dr Maurice Castro and Dr Paul Van Den Bergen.
Email .
Links:
- Software Engineering
Research Centre
