[ad_1]
Sydney Do, a systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, hopes to send humans into orbit around Mars and return in the late 1930s. Following a successful orbit and round-trip mission to Mars and back, the next missions would send astronauts to land on the surface of Mars for progressively longer periods of time. While it may take more than a decade before humans set foot on Mars, logistical planning has already begun.
In a SpaceWaves Fireside chat on Thursday, Do and Andrew Cox, a market research analyst at FreightWaves, discussed the logistics of a Martian supply chain and the timeline for future missions to Mars. You can find more details on the SpaceWaves Live event here.
In space, ample spare parts, food, fuel and water are essential for survival. On Mars, such emergency supplies will be even more vital due to the limited time windows available for transportation. Cox said astronauts currently require an average of 1.5 metric tons each of supplies for every six months in space. Do replied: “We are trying to increase the self-sustainability of astronauts on the Martian surface” so that staying there for two years would not require such large amounts of cargo.
Once the astronauts are involved, not sending enough supplies isn’t really an option because it would take two years for more supplies to arrive on Mars. Predicting maintenance needs and developing material reuse plans are important for success in space. Utilizing local resources is one of the strategies to be done and the Mars team hopes it will resolve itself on Mars due to the millions of miles of travel required for the cargo to get there. Water in the form of subterranean ice is one of the resources God relies on to support missions to Mars.
The Mars Exploration Program learns from Antarctica logistics
“Mars is a cold, arid desert, and that’s exactly what Antarctica is,” said Do.
Do explained how people and supplies can only be moved in or out of Antarctica for three to four months of the year due to the climate and cold conditions. Because Mars is so far away, Gd has noticed that we can only transport things to or from the planet every two years for a few months as Mars and Earth align in orbit around the sun. Compare space transportation to Antarctica’s supply chain because they both revolve around multimodal logistics systems for transporting goods and people from different places and in different ways.
Finding enough storage space and keeping necessary emergency supplies on hand is a constant challenge in Antarctica and in space. Choosing a landing sight near abundant underground ice stocks on Mars is important because of the preciousness of the water. Underground ice can be melted and used for drinking water, split into oxygen for breathing or combined with Martian rock to make rocket fuel, according to Do. The Mars team also talked about recycling waste for new purposes, such as melting old plastic to 3D print a new part. They said they intend to treat Mars like Antarctica, a pristine natural environment. To study it thoroughly, NASA is creating a plan to treat the waste or reuse it into something new to avoid contaminating Mars or transporting it on the long journey back to Earth.
What are the prospects for the exploration of Mars?
He works for the Mars Exploration Program, which launched the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover earlier this year. It is expected to land in an ancient river / lake system in the Jezero Crater on Mars in February. Perseverance’s mission is to collect samples of Martian rock and soil and look for signs of ancient life on Mars.
In 2026, NASA hopes to launch the Mars Sample Return mission, which would aim to transport Martian soil and rock samples to Earth by 2031. This mission would be the first to launch from the surface of Mars to Earth. Do stressed the importance of this mission: “Not only does he provide us with those rock samples to study the history of Mars, but we can also learn about the properties of Martian soil in the laboratories and this affects how you design systems to keep alive. . ”
Scientists are still studying and learning about the Moon rock samples acquired from the Apollo mission. He mentioned a Mars Ice Mapper mission that is in the preliminary formulation stage. Its goal would be to sharpen our understanding of where underground ice is found on Mars. Noted: “Based on the result of that mission, we will have enough information to be able to narrow down and select where we want to send humans to Mars.”
Click here for more Alyssa Sporrer’s FreightWaves articles.
Related Stories:
NASA will develop freight corridors in deep space
SpaceWaves: Space is the place for out-of-this-world investments (with video)
SpaceWaves: How Robots Are Building the Future in Space (with Video)
[ad_2]
Source link
