Our immediate neighbour planet – actually, that’s a bit close for my taste. At the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, I usually study worlds that are much further away: Extrasolar planets, i.e., those around stars other than the Sun. This still young field of research has been booming at least since NASA’s Kepler mission showed the enormous variety of planetary systems that distant stars harbour. Recent projections suggest that, on average, every star in the Milky Way is orbited by at least one planet. That would be hundreds of billions of extrasolar worlds in our home galaxy alone! As if that were not motivation enough, we also learn a lot of new things about the formation of our solar system from the more than 4000 exoplanets that have been discovered in the meantime. However, these objects of study have one decisive disadvantage: Due to their enormous distance, we can only dream of studying them in great detail with today’s technology. Only one planetary system has so far been scanned in “high definition” and even visited by probes – our own. This possibility of direct contact, one day even by brave earthlings, is what makes me so enthusiastic about manned space exploration and the Austrian Space Forum. There, the ultimate goal has long been set: manned flight to the red planet.

Before the first human footprint will be seen on Mars, it is imperative that the technologies needed to make it happen be tried out in a safe setting. This is where analog missions enter the game. Following the motto “fail fast, fail cheap,” the conditions of a crewed Mars landing are simulated here, from a habitable station with an airlock, to schedules filled with scientific experiments, to the careful selection of analog astronauts. The OeWF staff are undoubtedly the pros in this business. So I didn’t have to think twice about coming to Innsbruck as a visiting scientist to support the AMADEE-20 mission. My place is the Mission Support Center, from where the astronautical activities in the Israeli Negev Desert – which makes an excellent Mars, are coordinated. As the Science Data Officer (SDO), I am responsible for ensuring that the science data gets where it is expected to go. Scientists from 25 countries are eager to get their eyes on the data from their 29 experiments. The SDO’s location is ideal for gaining insight into each of the highly diverse experiments: Independently flying exploration drones, psychological assessments to explore consequences of prolonged isolation, geological sampling during outboard missions, and more.

However, I was particularly fascinated by the pitfalls of interplanetary communication. Ever since Einstein formulated his theory of relativity, which has now been tested countless times, we have known: Nothing in the universe moves faster than light. Absolutely nothing, not even radio waves or other conceivable information carriers, can exceed this absolute speed limit. Because of the distance between Mars and Earth of up to 400 million kilometres, this means a significant time delay of typically about 10 minutes per transmission direction. This feature is also simulated realistically in AMADEE-20 and leads to challenges as in a real space mission. This is remedied by strict communication protocols and carefully worded messages – both of which can be practiced nowhere better than in a full-scale Mars simulation with all interlocutors involved. The lessons learned will be valuable for future analog missions, but will also influence the operations of a future real Mars landing. Then an entire species will hold its breath as the “GO for Landing!” is sent into dark space. (by Martin Schlecker, translation: OeWF)

Dieser Artikel ist auch verfügbar auf: German