Overview of AMADE-20 Mars Analog Mission and Insights from AMADEE-24

Abstract

<p>AMADEE-20 is the latest Mars Analog Mission of the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF), conducted in Israel in the Negev Desert and hosted by the Israel Space Agency.</p> <p><img src="" alt="" /></p> <p>The 40 km long and 11 km wide Ramon Crater is an erosive crater unveiling a geological window of different sedimentary and volcanic processes with formations of sandstone, shales at the crater base, and mostly limestone and dolomite by the crater wall and represents sediments of the Thetis paleo-ocean with several volcanic and plutonic episodes including paleo-volcanos and granites. This nascency is accompanied by a semi-arid climate with dry summer (June – September), mild winter (December- February), and sparse vegetation only growing on the high rim hillslope and wadis (dry streams). Therefore, the Ramon Crater (Maktesh Ramon) presents remarkable geologic and geomorphological structures comparable to the Red Planet. Hence, beyond traditional analog mission applications, such as equipment behavior and evolving the know-how on crew management, we had the opportunity to develop research methods to catalyse the visibility of planetary explorations and develop structures for life-detection systematics and geoscientific techniques.</p> <p> </p> <p><span lang="EN-US">Two main segments of the mission; the mission support center (MSC)- on Earth time- and the field crew- on Mars time- were emulating a planetary surface mission by keeping a 2</span><span lang="UZ-CYR">0min time delay </span><span lang="EN-US">(10 min per signal direction) </span><span lang="UZ-CYR">to account for the average signal travel time between Earth and Mars. </span><span lang="EN-US">The </span><span lang="UZ-CYR">MSC </span><span lang="EN-US">was staffed by a </span><span lang="UZ-CYR">Flight Director</span><span lang="EN-US">, </span><span lang="UZ-CYR">Biomedical Engineer</span><span lang="EN-US">s,</span><span lang="UZ-CYR"> Earth Communicator</span><span lang="EN-US">s,</span><span lang="UZ-CYR"> CONTACTS</span><span lang="EN-US">,</span><span lang="UZ-CYR">Records Manager</span><span lang="EN-US">, </span><span lang="UZ-CYR">Procedure monitoring</span><span lang="EN-US">, </span><span lang="UZ-CYR">Human Factors, Remote Science Support</span><span lang="EN-US">,</span><span lang="UZ-CYR"> Flightplan Team</span><span lang="EN-US">, </span><span lang="UZ-CYR">Ground Support & Security</span><span lang="EN-US">, </span><span lang="UZ-CYR">Science Data Officer, </span><span lang="EN-US">and </span><span lang="UZ-CYR&qu