A team of Spanish researchers have succeeded in recreating Martian conditions right here on planet Earth. The new device may be used to test a variety of equipment for future missions to Mars.
To recreate Martian conditions, the team built a special vacuum chamber that can be used to simulate almost all of the physical conditions that can be observed on the Red Planet. The team that built the device, which they named Marte, say that it may be used to see how electronic and mechanical equipment will behave in simulated Martian conditions.
"In my view, the main problem for devices on Mars is the dust, which covers all the instrumentation and therefore decreases their average lifespan," said study lead author and University of Madrid physicist Jose Angel Martin-Gago.
To build the device, the team spend a total of one year and over $200,000 dollars. However, the ability to test equipment before hand will prove invaluable all future missions to Mars. Testing and redesigned equipment will be especially important in light of the current plans for upcoming manned missions to the Red Planet. The team published its findings in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments.
"The use of planetary simulation chambers has become a common approach to prepare special missions. Vacuum experimental set-up can mimic some of the most important environmental parameters in a close environment," said the researchers who build the device. "Among the most important applications in current and future missions are the study of DNA damage by space radiation; stability of crystalline phases of minerals on the surface of Mars; instrumentation validation, or survival of spores in space mission and planetary surface; or cosmic ices. These are a few examples of a long interdisciplinary list of different aspects that can be studied in these simulation chambers." The team published their findings in the online journal Review of Scientific Instruments.
To simulate different types of Martian physical conditions, the team needed to control a variety of factors such as gas composition, pressure, temperature and even ultraviolet radiation levels. The simulated conditions were designed based on data brought back by previous unmanned Mars missions.
"As an important improvement with respect to other simulation chambers, the atmospheric gas into the experimental chamber is cooled at the walls by the use of liquid-nitrogen heat exchangers," said Martin-Gago and his colleagues. This chamber incorporates a dust generation mechanism designed to study Martian-dust deposition while modifying the conditions of temperature, and UV irradiated."
While the device is effective for creating conditions very similar to those on Mars, it is not perfect. For one, MARTE cannot simulate Martian gravity. Moreover, replicating the effect of the planet's volume on heat dispersal within the chamber has also proven to be problematic. However, MARTE can still be considered as an important innovation that will yield valuable scientific data on equipment that will be built for upcoming Martian missions.
