The Mars Helicopter will be a technology demonstration conducted during the Mars 2020 mission. The primary mission objective is to achieve several 90-second flights demonstrating the feasibility of heavier-than-air flight ...

Knowledge of Martian dust and determination of its properties is a main point to be taken into account for landing vehicles and also landers and landed assets aiming to survive and work on Mars ground. The proposed paper ...

Providing photons for food production in a plant-based bioregenerative life support system (BLSS) is a significant component of total system cost. The energy to drive photosynthesis is the dominant factor in system net ...

The Martian environment is characterized by airborne mineral dust extending between the surface and up to 80 km altitude. This dust plays a key role in the climate system and in the atmospheric variability. It is a significant ...

Since its start in 2016, the COSPAR workshop series on "Planetary protection requirements for human extraterrestrial missions" has generated and refined a set of planetary protection (PP) knowledge gaps (KGs) which, if ...

The Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSIGHT) mission goals are the investigation of the internal structure and processes of Mars, relating them to the evolution of other ...

Planetary protection (PP) for crewed missions was last addressed during the Apollo era, where PP precautions were taken out of an abundance of caution. For Mars, we just don’t know yet about its indigenous biosphere: It ...

NASA is working with UTAS Space, Land, and Sea to develop concepts that group Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) systems into logical palletized modules allowing for the maximum use of common components and the ...

Although NASA has no official plans at this time for a mission to return samples from Mars, the Program Formulation Office of the Mars Exploration Program sponsors ongoing mission concept studies, systems analyses, and ...

Life support on the International Space Station is made possible by a combination of technologies to ensure the availability of clean water and air for the crew. Resources, including water and oxygen, are partially recovered ...