ESA Preparing for Mars Landing with "Mars 500"

Early in 2008, six European volunteers will undergo the rigors of a 500 day simulated voyage to Mars at a boot camp called ?Mars 500.? The select group will be kept at a special isolation facility in Russia that will investigate the psychological and medical aspects of a Mars mission, which is expected to last some 500 days.

During Mars 500, the volunteers will be assigned tasks similar to those they would have on a real space mission, and will have to cope with simulated emergencies. They will live in a series of metal tanks and will have to navigate narrow connecting passages to get to a medical area, a research area a crew compartment and the kitchen, an area of only 200m2. There is also a special tank representing the Mars descent vehicle for simulation of a stay on the Martian surface.

ESA will participate in the study organized by the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP). ESA hopes to learn how to prepare for a real Mars mission, which might occur in the coming two decades. Following an announcement of opportunity, ESA is now looking for scientific experiments that can be integrated into the study.

ESA scientist Marc Heppener said ESA?s main interest in Mars 500 is to look at the psychology of a mission where astronauts will be isolated in a spacecraft for 500 days. He noted that the crew will have to solve problems by themselves since they are on their own. The only help available from the outside is through communications that may take up to 40 minutes to travel from Earth.

"We want to look at the psychological effects of the situation on your mental well-being, and on your capabilities of performing certain tasks, even tasks critical to the mission. In a real mission, for example, whether you are able to land a vehicle on the surface of Mars, and are you able to do the science once you are there?" he asked. "How will group relations evolve? What are the potential dangers could we encounter? What kind of countermeasures can we invent that can prevent this? For us we can also learn about what types of personality we should select for a real mission."

Almost as important, ESA is keen to learn more about the medical procedures. Questions to be answered include defining a good medical environment so that one can treat diseases and the medicines to be brought along. There will be one astronaut with real medical training. "But of course that person can also fall ill. So, you have to have all kinds of back-up scenarios. To think all of that through is really difficult. We think doing a full simulation will teach us a lot," Heppener said.

He noted that while ESA was still negotiating its contract with IBMP, the basic agreement makes ESA a full partner in the project, which is largely funded by Roscosmos with an important involvement of the Russian Academy of Sciences. ESA will be involved at all levels.

He said ESA will nominate two volunteers of the six in the Mars 500 facility. ESA will also be involved in the full mission definition. That is also very important for us. "We have experience in having astronauts flying on the International Space Station, but having astronauts traveling to Mars is a whole different ball game. And we will also be able to propose a full set of science proposals that we want to be executed."

He revealed that ESA already has a first draft list of the kind of science it is looking for such as crew composition, the influence of confinement on sleep, mood and mental health and the effect of differences in personality, cultural background and motivation.

He said ESA will begin the volunteer selection process in mid-June with an announcement on the ESA website. "Our own pre-selection will then be followed with a selection by the integrated IBMP/ESA team. We believe we are going to have the selection concluded by November this year," he said.

Satnews Daily, April 3, 2007
http://www.satnews.com/stories2007/4229/