In Israel, our analog astronauts were supported by the On-Site Support team (OSS). This team consisted of analog astronauts, experienced field crew members and representatives of D-Mars. By the way, our mission photographer was on site in a double role, as he is also a member of the OSS team.

Using the GEOS experiment as an example, we explain a small part of the OSS team’s work. GEOS was about identifying the geological processes of an area in order to elucidate its geological history and to create a geo-training model for future missions. This experiment was conducted several times, once “suited”, i.e. with analog astronauts in suits, and once “unsuited”, i.e. without a space suit simulator. This “unsuited” run was performed by 2 analog astronauts from the OSS team. They were thus the control group for our analog astronauts to obtain the scientific data.

A big thank you to our incredibly great OSS team! For the last EVA they even had to set up and reconfigure the entire WIFI antennas and routers.

What happens with all the data that is collected? That’s what we have the Science Data Officers (SDO) for. They make sure that all the data collected during a mission (both experimental and operational) is archived so that it is secure and accessible to as many people as possible under controlled conditions.

The SDOs ensure that the data acquired in the field are properly transferred, managed and stored in the Science Data Archive. After a Mars simulation, the meticulous data analysis and interpretation begins, so that scientific publications can be produced. Their work is therefore immensely important for the internationally active researchers from 25 countries.

Incidentally, the Science Data Archive contains data not only from AMADEE-20 but also from the larger, earlier missions. This treasure trove of data is available to all researchers for their scientific questions.

The AMADEE-20 Mission Support Center (MSC) in Innsbruck was located in rooms rented especially for the training and the mission period. Our IT team had to build the entire IT infrastructure necessary to run an MSC with several workstations. During the mission, they helped troubleshoot consoles, gave MSC members access to mission-specific servers and drives, customized user accounts, and worked closely with the scientific data archive team. All of this was always done while constantly ensuring IT security. Without our merry nerds, it would not only have been difficult to get the WIFI password, which is essential for everyone, but such a mission would simply not be feasible.

A big thank you to all our hard-working helpers behind the scenes of the AMADEE-20 mission! Our 13th Mars simulation would not have been possible without you.

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