On April 17th, a delegation from the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF) signed the official cooperation agreement with the Armenian Aerospace Agency in Yerevan to carry out a four-week Mars mission simulation in March 2024. The Armenian Agency for Aerospace is the recently established national coordinating agency for research and development of the Government of Armenia.

In the presence of the Ambassador of the Republic of Austria in Armenia, Dr. Thomas Mühlmann, OeWF board-member, Reinhard Tlustos and the director of the OeWF, Dr. Gernot Grömer as well as CEO Mher Mehrabyan signed the Memorandum of Understanding for the Mars analog mission AMADEE-24.

Mher Mehrabyan, CEO of the Armenian Agency for Aerospace, said: “The Austrian Space Forum is one of the world’s most renowned institutions in the field of analog research. We are therefore delighted that the Republic of Armenia has been chosen as the host country for the next mission. Armenia has a long tradition in spaceflight technology which we will continue with AMADEE-24. This Mars analog mission will bring innovative scientific, industrial and educational contributions to Armenia, from which our companies, economy and scientific community as well as our young talents will benefit.”

OeWF-Director Dr. Gernot Grömer, who heads the mission, said: “With the Armenian Aerospace Agency, we have gained a strong and reliable partner for our current Mars mission simulation. The Agency has already provided valuable support in the preparation of AMADEE-24. The mission habitat for our analog astronauts including the ‘airlock’ is currently being developed and built in Armenia according to our specifications. The habitat and the selected test site offer optimal conditions to take another important step in our analog research and at the same time will create excellent starting conditions for our cooperation partners and their experiments.”

About AMADEE-24

A team of six analog astronauts will spend four weeks testing equipment and procedures designed to detect traces of life, and will also explore the psychological effects of working under time pressure and in isolation for four weeks. The analog astronauts will live in a specially designed habitat and will only be able to exit while wearing a spacesuit simulator. A 10-minute time delay has been introduced into the communication between the Mission Support Center in Vienna and the test site in Armenia to simulate the signal propagation time between Earth and Mars.

The OeWF is one of five institutions worldwide that has developed such a Mars suit prototype. This can reflect all of the major limitations of a real Mars spacesuit, such as weight, pressure counterforces, or limited perception ability. A sophisticated man-machine interface, a system of sensors and self-developed software makes the suit a virtual assistant for the astronaut.

The tests will be carried out in the areas of natural and engineering sciences, biomedicine and psychology. Representative simulations such as AMADEE-24 increase the acquisition of scientific knowledge, optimize the safety of the processes used and promote technology transfer.

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