Association Planète Mars, the French chapter of the Mars Society, has donated $6,000 to help fund the Mars Arctic 365 (MA365) mission. Accordingly, the chapter was given the right to name one of the major pieces of mission equipment and chose to designate the first of the two primary generators that will power the MA365 mission as "Carnot."

MA365 is a plan to simulate a one-year Mars human surface exploration mission at the Mars Society’s Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station(FMARS) located in the polar desert on Canada's Devon Island. The crew of the mission will attempt to conduct a program of field exploration in one of the most Mars-like environments on Earth, while operating under many of the same operational constraints as an actual Mars mission. In the course of doing this, crew members will learn a great deal about what methods, technologies and tactics will work best on the Red Planet. Furthermore, they will do this while dealing with the stresses that come not only from isolation, as the Mars500 crew did, but also cold, danger, hard work and the need to achieve real scientific results, and thus truly begin to explore the critical human factor issues facing Mars exploration. Nothing like this has ever been done before.

The MA365 mission is divided into two phases. Phase 1 will begin this July, sending a crew up to the Canadian Arctic to refit the FMARS facilit for winter work. Phase 2, which will commence in the summer of 2014, will be the actual one-year Mars simulation mission. Costs of the mission are estimated at $130,000 for Phase 1 and $1 million for Phase 2.

To read the full announcement, please click here.

A complete report on the Mars Arctic 365 mission will be given at the 16th Annual International Mars Society Convention, August 15-18, 2013, at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Online registration is available.

Several weeks ago, the Mars Society announced that it was initiating a ground-breaking project known as Mars Arctic 365, a special one-year Mars surface simulation mission to take place at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) on Devon Island in northern Canada.

The Mars Arctic 365 program, scheduled to begin in the summer of 2014, will provide scientists with the most extensive testing to date on how a multi-person crew can live and work together under isolated, stressful and harsh conditions as part of a human mission to the Red Planet. 

Given the importance of this scientific endeavor to the planning for a humans-to-Mars expedition, the Mars Society had recruited a high-level team of experts to design and manage the science program that will be carried out during the year-long simulation. Areas of research will include geology, microbiology, human physiology and psychology, nutrition-food studies and field technology studies, to name a few.  

The following eight people will make up the Mars Arctic 365 science team:

Dr. Alexander Kumar (Principal Investigator) -- Dr. Kumar is a British medical doctor and experienced scientific explorer, who spent one year at Concordia Station in Antarctica and also organized the White Mars field study for Sir Ranulph Fiennes' Coldest Journey expedition across the southern continent.

Dr. Chris McKay -- Dr. McKay is a planetary scientist at NASA, who specializes in astrobiology, planetary atmospheres, terraforming and planning for the human exploration of Mars and has extensive experience in polar field work.  He was also one of the founders of The Mars Underground.

Dr. Carol Stoker -- Dr. Stoker is a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, who works on developing instruments and robotic systems for space exploration and has lead field testing in numerous analog environments, including Antarctica. She was also one of the founders of The Mars Underground.

Dr. James Rice -- Dr. Rice is an astrogeologist specializing in the surface geology and history of water on Mars and also works as a co-investigator and geology team leader on the MER (Spirit & Opportunity) project.  In addition, Dr. Rice has extensive field experience in Antarctica, the High Arctic, Hawaii and elsewhere.

Dr. Penelope Boston -- Dr. Boston is a speleologist and astrobiologist specializing in the study of caves, related subsurface structures and gem-microbiology. She serves as academic director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute and was one of the founders of The Mars Underground.

Dr. Robert Zubrin -- Dr. Zubrin is an aerospace engineer, expert on Mars exploration, author and president and founder of the Mars Society, the world's largest space advocacy group dedicated to the human exploration and settlement of the Red Planet. He is also president of Pioneer Astronautics.

Shannon Rupert -- Ms. Rupert is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Mexico specializing in biological sciences and ecology. She also serves as Mission Director of the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), a Mars Society sponsored simulation analog in the Utah desert.

Lauren Fletcher -- Mr. Fletcher is a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford University specializing in environmental microbiology, planetary sciences and engineering. He has also carried out extensive biological field studies in the harsh Mars-like deserts of Peru and Chile.

A full update on the Mars Arctic 365 project, including a report on a pre-mission visit to the FMARS facility in July, will be presented at the 16th Annual International Mars Society Convention, August 15-18, 2013 at the University of Colorado in Boulder.  

To help support the Mars Arctic 365 program via a donation, please click here.

The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Mark S. Geyer, Program Manager for NASA’s Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MCPV), will give an update about Orion and its potential for exploring beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at the 16th Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for August 15-18, 2013 at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Prior to getting involved with Orion, Mr. Geyer served as Deputy Manager of the Constellation Program (2005-2007) and also worked as Manager of System Engineering and Integration for the Development Program Division of NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in 2005.  In addition, he managed the International Space Station Program Integration Office (2000-2004) and held the title of Increment Manager for the International Space Station (1999-2000).

In recent years, Mr. Geyer has received a number of special honors, including the NASA Exceptional Service Medal (2005), the NASA Meritorious Executive Rank Award (2006), the NASA Distinguished Executive Rank Award (2011) and the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal (2012).  He graduated from Purdue University with a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering. 

For more information about the 2013 Mars Society Convention, including registration details and sponsorship opportunities, please click here.

[Image: NASA]

The Mars Society would like to extend its sincere appreciation to Planète Mars, the French chapter of the Mars Society, for its recent 5,000€ donation to the Mars Arctic 365 project, the one-year Mars surface simulation mission at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) in northern Canada.

For details about Mars Arctic 365, please click here. Also to make a contribution to the Mars Arctic 365 project, please click here.