Österreichisches Weltraum Forum Austrian Space Forum
ÖWF Mars desert camp at night, with light logo (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
These stars in the night sky announce tomorrows Mars landing. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
Quiet sunset over the track laid out for the DELTA experiment. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
Today there is a day of R&R in our flightplan. We’ll be back tomorrow, and on monday we will ‘land on Mars’. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
Setting up our own WLAN in the desert to cover experiments area. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
We need VOIP communication and telemetry from our space suits and experiments. The desert (just like Mars) usually does not have WLAN coverage already. So we set up our own in the expedition area. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
This expedition really is isolated, (almost) just as it would be on Mars. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
If you picture this landscape with the sky in a different colour and ignore the vegetation it looks quite a lot like Mars, don’t you think? (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
Group of school children gets tour of Mission Support Center in full operation. (c) OeWF (Jarno Peschier)
The field team in the desert is an important part of Mars 2013, but not the biggest part. For every person ‘on Mars’ there are about four people in the Mission Support Center. (c) OeWF (Jarno Peschier)
An important part of preparation week in the desert is working with various media. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
We often get the question from selected media representatives visiting us already: “If you are only ‘landing on Mars’ on Monday the 11th, why are you already in the desert for almost a week?” The answer is that we have to put up the field tents, assemble scientific equipment and test all devices before we “land” on the 11th of February and isolate the field crew to begin the simulation. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
Dust devil photographed by Mars 2013 field team on the 3rd of February. (c) OeWF
A snapshot of a dust devil in the vicinity of the base camp. This phenomenon has been seen by the Spirit rover on Mars and confirms the great similarity between Morocco and Mars. (c) OeWF
Desert camp at night. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
The Mars 2013 field camp is all set up under the same constellations in the night sky that past explorers used for guidance on their voyages. It will be a great reminder to make new discoveries of our own. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
Travelling out into the desert. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
The locations for the Mars 2013 simulation are remote sites in the desert region around Erfoud (Morocco). Whereas future manned Mars missions use spaceships to reach their destination our field crew has to resort to cars and trucks. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
Field Team departure (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
A new mission to Mars begins! At the end of January the field team travelled to Morocco to begin a month-long analog field-simulation in order to gain scientific and operational insights for a future manned mission to the Red Planet. (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)
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