In a crater 500 meters deep lost in the ocher expanse of the Negev desert, the astronauts equipped with their suits advance with a heavy step.

Purpose of their mission?

Simulate the conditions of life on Mars in southern Israel.

In this unique setting of Makhtesh Ramon, the largest erosion crater in the world which stretches over 40 km in length, the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF) has set up a “Martian base”, in partnership with the Israeli space agency, as part of their Amadee-20 mission, initially planned last year but postponed for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Welcome to "Mission to Mars"!


Director:

Olivier JUSZCZAK

  • For almost a month and until the end of October, six "analogous astronauts" - an expression used to describe people reproducing on Earth the conditions of a long mission in space - will live cut off from the world in this "Martian station", in the Negev Desert, Israel.

  • They are from Portugal, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Israel.

  • The 500-meter-deep crater, the stony desert and the orange hues of the horizon approach the Martian landscape, less weightlessness and cold.

    "Here we have temperatures which are 25-30 degrees, on Mars it is minus 60 degrees Celsius and the atmosphere is unbreathable", explains the Austrian Gernot Grömer, who supervises the mission.

  • The Austrian Space Forum, a private organization bringing together aerospace specialists, has joined forces with the Israeli research center D-MARS to build a polygon-shaped base powered by solar energy.

    The mission is called Amadee-20.

  • Inside, the comfort is spartan with a small kitchen and bunk beds because most of the space is reserved for scientific experiments.

  • All of the “crew” volunteered.

    But they had to pass many physical and psychological tests to participate in this mission and to carry out a whole series of experiments.

  • During their month to recreate

    Mars on Earth, analogue astronauts will have to test a prototype drone that works without GPS and autonomous vehicles powered by wind and solar energy to map the territory.

  • And they can only go out in a spacesuit, as if they were on the red planet!

  • A trained microbiologist, Anika Mehlis, will assess the possibility of microbial contamination, that is to say of introducing terrestrial bacteria on Mars with the risk of eliminating any life that could be there.

    "It will be a big problem," she says, touching on one of the major challenges of the conquest of space.

  • Their results could one day turn out to be essential, as the US space agency, NASA, is planning a first manned mission to Mars in the 2030s.

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