The experiments

Streambed analysis

The previous crew from UCL (crew 127) began a project with the objective of establishing a model of the past flow for a dry streambed as the conditions would be close to the ones encountered on Mars and could provide interesting observations. We plan to continue and develop this project. The project ended with a mapping of the studied area and an estimation of the past flow. We want to go further with the data collecting and the model obtained last year. By using more parameters and more accurate data, the objective would be to determine the infiltration proportion and characteristics of the flow such as discharge and duration. Those additional parameters would be the nature of the soil, the size and volume of sediments, the shape of the bed, etc. They would be implemented with a MATLAB program to obtain a coherent model of the flow and its origin. By analyzing the duration and discharge, we could obtain a global estimation of the water transiting by this bed over a longer period. The final objective would be a 3D mapping of the bed and its characteristics: volume, speed and infiltration

 Altitude measurements

The project aims to retrieve meteorological data via a helium balloon. Our sensors will record the temperature, the humidity, the wind velocity, the pressure and the QNH or even the dew point. This data will be extrapolated to draw a model with respect to the altitude, to process a weather forecast. The protocol will be generalized to evaluate the feasibility of this experiment in real situation: on Mars.

 Geological prospection with UV

The purpose of the project is to find the presence of ancient water channels in desert. The methodology consists in finding a place that we assume to be a dry channel. The evaporite minerals (halite, gypsum, etc.) have the capacity to fluoresce when they are lighted by ultraviolet waves (long and short). The procedure will consist of collecting samples of minerals along the dry channel and to reference and localize all of them with the GPS. The second part of the study will be the lighting of the sample with the UV light and test the minerals with hydrochloric acid (HCl) (for the Carbonates). When the samples are referenced as evaporitic or not, they are put on a map with the software ArcMap from the ESRI suite, ArcGIS. The result will be a map with all the samples which will delimit the rivers. With these results it will be possible to set up the presence of an ancient river

 Observation and spectral analysis of planets

The location of Mars and the fact that it does not have magnetic fields or atmosphere make it the perfect spot to observe our solar system. We will thus make use of the Musk Observatory and optic spectrometers to proceed with measurements of the spectrum emitted by planets from our solar system. Once the spectrum is recorded, we'll analyze it and will be able to determine the atmospheric composition of the observed object. We will also employ the telescope to take pictures of planets and other celestial bodies. There will be two supernovas that have recently exploded and that will be fully visible!