World Space Week 2013

“Exploring Mars, Discovering Earth” was a campaign of networked Mars analog demonstrations to celebrate World Space Week (WSW) 2013 from 4-10 October 2013. The events were coordinated from the WSW 2013 Mission Control Center, located at the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF) in Innsbruck, Austria.

Activities included the WSW 2013 Mission to Mars, a 4-day simulation of a human Mars expedition at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. Other highlights included rover operations by teams in Chile, Germany, Hungary, Poland,and the US, as well as a multiple EVA with analog spacesuits in Austria, the US and France. All of these activities were viewable live online and will provided opportunities for interaction over the Internet to school groups and museums around the world.

“Exploring Mars, Discovering Earth” was organised by the World Space Week Association, in partnership with the Space Generation Advisory Council, The Mars Society, the OeWF and the Kiwispace Foundation.

Download

WSW Public Mission Report

Earth Master Sample

Bringing two worlds together for the future of exploration

People from all over the world were invited to send us a rock from their local area to be combined together in a “Earth Master Sample”. In Austria we cominbed all samples incl. a sample from Antartica and the deep see together with a Mars meteorite. Swarovski then transformed then into the TiuTerra Crystal which then flew with Samantha Cristoforetti to the International Space Station.

World Space Walk, 08th October 2013

For the first time, three Mars analogue suit development teams around the world have performed simultaneous experiments, coordinated from a single mission control centre. The experiments are a first step in developing a universal standard for comparing Mars analogue suits in terms of the impact they have on the agility and dexterity of the suit wearers.

The ‘World Space Walk’ spacesuit testers performed agility and mobility tasks wearing:

The Aouda.X suit developed by the Austrian Space Forum in Innsbruck, Austria
The NDX-2 suit developed by the Human Spaceflight Laboratory of the University of North Dakota, USA
Analogue suits at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), Utah, USA.

Mars Analog Activities

The World Space Week 2013 ‘Exploring Mars, Discovering Earth’ campaign included 12 Mars analog activities by partners that opened up access to their rovers, spacesuites and facilities:

Crew - Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) Experiments - Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS)Aouda.X - Austrian Space Forum (OeWF)Gandolfi Suit - ComexNDX Spacesuits - University of North DakotaMars Simulation Chamber - CAB-INTAAsimov Rover - Part-Time ScientistsBridget, ExoMars Rover - RAL SpaceHyperion Rover - Technical University of BiałystokMAGMA White Rover - ABM SpaceMAVRIC - University of IowaMRover - University of MichiganPuli Rover - Puli Space Technologies

More resources

Read all our blog posts on World Space Week 2013
Watch what happened on YouTube
World Space Week Website

Partners

Jon Rask Commander	Jon Rask is a Research Scientist in the Space Biosciences Division at NASA Ames Research Center. His current research focuses on human health effects of space flight and the exploration of the Moon and Mars. Jon has characterized the toxicity and abrasiveness of Apollo lunar dust specimens, and developed novel brick-like regolith biocomposite technologies made from lunar dust simulants. Jon Rask has also developed and tested life science hardware and experiments that flew aboard the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. He has performed experiment operations aboard the NASA C9B parabolic aircraft. Jon has been involved in Mars analog research at the MDRS, in the Mojave desert, in the Empty Quarter Desert of the Middle East, in deserts of Western Australia, North Dakota, in the Arctic on Svalbard, and in Antarctica, where he has tested prototype space suit technology, operated at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Most recently, Jon has served as the PI for a human study aboard the NASA Ames Human Performance Centrifuge.
Haritina Mogosanu, First Officer	Haritina is a life scientist with background in biology, chemistry, horticultural engineering, environmental management, communication, biosecurity and international security. She currently works for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) of New Zealand as a Biosecurity Risk Analyst being one of the designers of the Emerging Risks System, protecting New Zealand from biological risk. Haritina also lectures at the Carter Observatory, Wellington. Passionate about life sciences, astrobiology, astronomy and culture, she participated in the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) analog exploration program with crew 98 RoMars 2011 (First Officer), crew 118 KiwiMars 2012 (Commander), crew 123 TasMars 2013 (Mission Director) and is part of the MDRS Astronomy Outreach Crew.
Randall Dunning	Randall Dunning holds a MSc in physics from the Utah State University and has worked as a interpretive park ranger in Colorado and Utah. His medical training includes CPR/AED and Advanced First Aid Certified as well as an active license in Wilderness First Response. At the MDRS he is also a member of the Musk Observatory Astronomy Team.
Patricia (Tricia) Marie Smedley	Born in Cape Canaveral, FL, Tricia’s father worked at Kennedy Space Center and hence she has been around space science all her life. She served as President of the Brevard Astronomical Society for several years. During her time working for Badlands National Park as a Night Sky Ranger, she organized the first ever Badlands Astronomy Festival. Her passion for preserving the night sky, organizing outreach events for space science organizations, and amateur astronomy has landed her on “Mars”, as a member of the MDRS Astronomy Team. She served on her first crew in July, during the 2013 Summer Astronomy Refit Crew. She specializes in astronomy outreach and public relations. She is working on her undergraduate degree at Eastern Florida State College, majoring in Astronomy and Organizational Management.
Jamie Guined	Jamie Guined holds a MA in Health Studies (Univ. of Alabama), MBA and M.Ed. from Georgia Southwestern State University. She wokrs as an exercise specialist at the Johnson Space Center where she organizes ground, analog, and flight human performance testing of human test subjects and astronauts. She supports the development of research and operational protocols to characterize the response of the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and neuromuscular systems to prolonged spaceflight. Jamie Guined is also teaching at the University of Phoenix/Axia College as a Facilitator for the courses Principles of Health & Wellness
Jean Hunter	Jean Hunter is an Associate Professor at Cornell University’s Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering. Her research interests include food engineering and the use of fermentation and enzyme technologies to produce useful products from food and agricultural wastes. Most of her work during the last 10 years has focused space life support including testing and optimization of food systems for long term planetary missions, small scale processing of food materials and agricultural residues in bioregenerative life support systems, in-situ resource utilization, water recovery, and solid waste processing. She has been active at MDRS as a CapCom, a member of the Remote Science Team and lead investigator of the MDRS food study.

Mission Science	During the World Space Week analog mission, the six MDRS crew will simulate elements of a human Mars operation. The mission will focus on outreach & education and will also carry out a suite of scientific experiments under the command of Jon Rask (First Officer: Haritina Mogosanu).
D-TREX	D-TREX is a planning tool based on statistical measurement, which shows the average time delay between performing typical activities with the spacesuit (Extra Vehicular Activities – EVA) as compared to performing same activities unsuited. D-TREX is a follow-up experiment of the DELTA© experiment, which was first performed during the MARS2013 mission of the Austrian Space Forum in Morocco.
Multiple Spacesuit EVA	To establish a practicable standard delay measurement for spacesuits used for future Mars analog missions, DELTA© and D-TREX will be further developed into DELTABOX, a standard toolbox with instructions, allowing easy repeatability independent from any mission architecture. As a foundation for this, there will be a multiple EVA held on Tuesday 8 October 2013 with participation from spacesuit testers at the MDRS, the OeWF’s Aouda.X programme in Innsbruck and the North Dakota Human Spaceflight Laboratory’s NDX programme.
Change Detection	The MDRS crew will document small scale geomorphological changes due to weathering four locations previously studied.
Sand Sampling Experiment	Analysis of sand samples as possible Mars analogues for future rover tests.
SediChem	Small scale (0.5 – 1 cm) hematite spherules, known as ‘concretions’ have been identified on Mars by the Opportunity and Curiosity Rovers, and have also been found in the area surrounding the MDRS. The MDRS team will take close-up images of the concretions in rocky outcrops and collect hand-sized samples for further study.
Other experiments	Biomedical monitoring with a wireless ECG (Jon Rask, tbc) Station Data Monitoring

Hardware type	Suit
Hardware name	Aouda.X
Location	Innsbruck, Austria
Institution	Austrian Space Forum (OeWF)
Primary contact	Gernot Grömer
Description	Aouda.X is a spacesuit simulator for planetary surface exploration, which the Austrian Space Forum has developed within the Mars analog research program „PolAres“. Aouda.X is able to mimic border conditions that a real Mars spacesuit would provide. The purpose of this spacesuit is to study contamination vectors in planetary exploration analog environments and create limitations depending on the pressure regime chosen for simulation. The outer hull consists of a Panox/Kevlar tissue with aluminum coating and the suit can perform within a tested temperature range from -100°C to +35°C. An advanced human-machine interface, a set of sensors and purpose designed software act as a local virtual assistant to the crewman. Aouda.X is designed to interact with other field components like the rover and various instruments.

Hardware type	Suit
Hardware Name	Gandolfi
Location	Marseilles, France
Organisation	Comex, Département Ingénierie en Milieux Extrêmes, Centre d’Essais Hyperbares
Primary contact	Dr. Peter Weiss
Description	The Compagnie Maritime d’Expertise or COMEX is a worldwide pioneer in the development of technologies for human interventions in extreme environments. COMEX is active today in various fields related to subsea intervention. The enterprise has a fleet of Research Vessels for Oceanographic research and survey, subsea robots that can dive down to 2500m and even a manned submersible “REMORA 2000” for a crew of two. Comex still holds the two deepest world professional diving records with hydrogen gas mixture. The first, named HYDRA 8, was performed in offshore conditions at -534 Metres Sea Water (MSW) depth (1988). The second one HYDRA 10 was achieved in an hyperbaric chamber at -701 MSW depth (1992). In the 1990s COMEX participated in the training of European astronauts underwater, where microgravity (weightlessness) can be simulated. During the World Space Week we will present our training tools and recent projects to train astronauts for future missions to Moon and Mars, such as the APOLLO XI UNDER THE SEA MISSION.

Hardware type	Suit
Hardware name	NDX-2 (and NDX-1)
Location	Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States
Institution	University of North Dakota
Primary contact	Pablo de León
Description	The NDX-2 is a pressurized analogue space suit prepared for usage during lunar simulations on Earth. This suit was designed in conjunction with the Pressurized Electric Rover to which NDX-2 will ultimately be externally attached.