Oman Mars mission reaps ‘rich harvest’
One of the surprising results would be the good growing rate of radishes, water cress and salad
International space experts have evaluated the first findings of the Analog-mars-mission AMADEE-18 conducted by the Austrian Space Forum (OEWF) in cooperation with the Omani Astronomical Society.
A report released by OEWF said the scientists not only focused on data gathered during the four-week mission in the Dhofar desert of Oman, but also developed possible improvements for mission logistics and architecture.
“We would like to thank Oman for its outstanding support in the conduct of this international project. In particular, Oman Astronomical Society has been vital in coordinating the National Steering Committee of the AMADEE-18 expedition,” said Dr Gernot Gromer, field commander, AMADEE-18.
The Austrian Space Forum appreciated the value Oman puts on science and education. “We believe that both the industrial base as well as the level of academic education in Oman is a fruitful base for further engagement in the space sector. As a follow-up collaboration, a group of Omani engineering students will be joining the Austrian Space Forum this summer to work on future projects for Mars exploration,” said Dr Gromer.
“Most of the research teams, whose experiments were carried out in Oman, are still working on analysing their data. Now we have a total of 10 hours of high-quality voice recordings in our hands that further the project and will, after additional research, enable us to use voice-modulations to evaluate the mood of our crews early on,” said Dr Gromer.
He added, “One of the surprising results would be the good growing rate of radishes, water cress and salad in the blow-up greenhouse ‘Hortextreme’ of the Italian Space Agency ASI. The harvest of ‘Rambo Radish’ 15 days after planting delivered a surprisingly high harvest. That is one of the best results ever achieved in laboratory conditions, especially when it comes to considering energy efficiency. This would be highly valuable for providing astronauts with fresh food on Mars.”
A more detailed data analysis will investigate the exact reason behind this record harvest.
The Italian ground-penetrating radar Scanmars performed excellently. During the course of analysing data obtained from a 1.7-km stretch of land, a dried-out riverbed — which had already been covered by sand — was found based upon 93,617 individual scans.
“If one of these wadis were found on Mars, it would be an important step towards learning more about water reserves in the Red Planet’s past,” said Dr Gromer.
The results from AVI-NAV, a camera-based Mars-copter navigation system, which will be used during the Nasa-mars-mission 2020, were also touched upon.
After their analysis, both by the Alpen Adria University Klagenfurt and the University of Technology in Graz, the data sets will be made available to the Mars 2020 rover development team at Nasa.
The reports added that the analog Mars mission united 200 people from 25 countries and 16 different scientific institutions from six nations under a common goal — moving a step closer to exploring the red planet through manned missions.