The experiments

Spirulina as space food - Chloé's experiment

As water is a limiting factor on Mars, lots of questions related to how to grow food on the Red Planet remain unsolved. On this purpose, current scientific research focuses on developing technologies to grow highly nutritive food requiring small amount of water. One possible option is spirulina! Indeed, those cyanobacteria are highly prospective for astronauts’ alimentation during future Martian explorations. Not only can it be taken as a dietary supplement enriched in proteins, but it has also therapeutic properties.

In that sense, we propose to establish a spirulina culture during our mission. The experiment will study the effect of space mission conditions on the culture system, including the small amount of space, materials and water available, the monitoring of the system and finally considering alternatives to improve the culture in such conditions.

Martian Constitution - Nathan's experiment

His research will consist in the drafting of a Martian constitution. Today, no rules or legislation apply to Mars. However, law is necessary to organize human society, as Martian missions are going to develop.

He would like to draft it together with the crew because a text of such importance needs to gather all different opinions to be as democratic as possible. Nevertheless, he is going to play a central role in it. His project consists of writing articles and submitting them to the crew for a vote. Of course, he will take into consideration the crew’s opinions and he will be very thankful for every idea coming from them. The final goal is to have a coherent text who may be applied to future Martian missions.

Impact of a Martian lifestyle on sleep quality - Benjamin's experiment

A correct and regular sleep is essential for the recuperative power of the crew. For a long-term mission, recuperative power is crucial for the preservation of the reflexes and the cognitive functions of the members of the crew.

The conditions of such a mission, which are among others confinement, the seclusion and the closeness with the team 24 hours a day, could have a serious impact on the quality of the sleep of the members of the team.

This is why we will analyze the quality of sleep through complete polysomnography, actimetry, critical flicker fusion frequency and neuropsychometric tests.

Fully autonomous 3D mapping

We plan to improve the usability and efficiency of drone 3D mapping to the next level. The first step will be to gather data and software used by our predecessor Bastien Baix from the UCL to Mars 2018 mission. Mapping techniques are constantly evolving and updating the software behind the project is necessary.

The core idea will be to automate the procedure itself. The precision of the built-in GPS positioning system (an error margin of 1-2 meters) and the camera should be enough to fully automate the gathering and treatment of mapping data. UCL to Mars already owns a Parrot Bebop 2 drone that was bought by the previous crew for last year’s experiments that we intend to reuse, and existing technologies can be used to create and share 3D paths around the MDRS.

The challenge will be to optimize the paths every day, test the functionalities and find the easiest, fastest way to get updated data on site. This will require work before the mission for development and during It for optimization and continuous testing. The final goal would be to develop and test a powerful tool for 3D mapping in a desert environment that is complete, robust and easy to use even for non-engineers.

Automating high-precision tasks with drones - Julien's experiment

While the GPS may be enough for a variety of tasks, when it comes to precisely checking tank levels or approaching a precise object on the ground, it’s just not precise enough. First, we need to gather a list of these tasks and evaluate what precision they would need (an error of less than 1 meter? 5 centimeters?).

Multiple techniques that are already studied here at UCLouvain, will be tested to improve the precision of the drone and help it focus on points. For example, color dots or special QR codes can be positioned near an object or on top of it to assist the drone for positioning itself. The camera takes a picture then the on-board computer can analyze its position but also its inclination angle to the surface. Recognizing the shapes requires different tweaks depending on the environment, and a Martian-like reddish ground with rocks is very different than the clean gray floor of a building. If successful this may come handy for an experiment of our Commander, Carl-Henrik, which may require to gently dropping cubic probes of high value in a specific position.

For even further precision, a theodolite (the large measuring stick used by surveyors) and a prism could be used to guide the drone with an error margin smaller than an inch.

Development of a telescope for cosmic muon flux and density measurements​ - Maxime's experiment

This project is based on the upgrading of a compact telescope based on small and gastight Glass Resistive Gas Chambers (“minigRPC”) build last year by Sophie Wuyckens and is aimed at performing a feasibility study of possible research on Mars geology. The first part of the project will be an improvement of the software used to collect and analyze the data. The second part will be the eventual refinements we could perform on different parts of the detector to make sure the data we get are the most reliable possible. The third part will consist of the collection of in-field data at the MDRS, and its analysis. The goal will then be to make a study of the muon flux generated by interactions of primary cosmic rays and, if time allows, to proceed to a radiography or tomography (3D) of the landscape (mountains, hills, etc.) of the Utah desert with “muography”. This technique is very interesting for planets exploration. For instance, we could radiograph Mars and characterize its interior and know about the planet’s evolutionary state and history as well as even finding some places geologically well-adapted places for future colony implantation.

Devices of interest tracking with Ultra-Wide Band geolocation system - Simon's experiment

Here on Earth, GPS technology brought various tools to our society in a wide tech area. Up there on Mars, it might be useful to implement GPS-like devices and keep track of what’s going on in our new Martian civilization. Nowadays, there are different geolocation technologies for different purposes. In regard of the relatively small size of our facilities and the precise experiments undertaken, the most relevant setup is the one which maximizes accuracy at the expense of the detection range. Using this configuration, we will be able to monitor near EVA, conducted by our astronauts and rovers.

Deployment of a swarm of Cube Lands - Carl-Henrik's experiment

Mars presents a dynamic environment that cannot be fully described by measures taken by a small number of probes. However, current Martian missions are very costly and do not allow them to cover large regions of its surface. To get a more comprehensive view of Mars climate evolution, we propose to rely on miniaturized landers, called Cube Lands that could be deployed on large strands of Mars surface via drones. Those landers will include several scientific instruments such as a thermometer, light/radiation, pressure, CO2, wind or magnetic field sensor to characterize the environment and provide new insights into its evolution.

In contrast with CubeSats, which could deploy large solar panels and antennas, Cube Lands are affected by the planet’s gravity. Therefore, we propose to rely on ultra-low power RF transceiver to reduce power consumption and be able to use a single solar panel covering one of the Cube Land sides. However, such transceivers have a much lower range which implies that Cube lands could only communicate with nearest neighbors. A transmission algorithm will therefore be included in each lander to transmit, via the Cube Lands network, their information to the deployment unit which in turn could transfer the set of data to the Earth. The concept will be tested at the MDRS via the deployment of a dozen landers via a drone. The electronic system will be based on the Arduino platform and includes sensors, a solar panel, a charging unit, a battery for data collection during the night and a transceiver for data transmission to the main unit via the landers network.

Enhancing leguminous plant nutrition via mycorrhiza symbiosis in a Martian simulated environment -  Chloé's experiment

As a one-way trip to Mars is estimated at 6 months at the shortest, a round-trip mission to the red planet could last years. Therefore, setting up technologies to grow food in complete autonomy seems crucial. One main issue remains enhancing plant nutrition and increasing their resistance to stress and drought.

 To elucidate that point, we propose to study beneficial mycorrhizal fungi connecting with plant roots and forming a network of fungal fibres, bringing water and nutrients to the plant. They support the plant for its entire life and improve yield. 

On the one hand, we will study how this network develops in a Martian simulated soil. On the other hand, we will measure the effectiveness of the symbiosis with a leguminous plant in such conditions. Through this research, we aim to expand scientific knowledge on how Martian conditions affect symbiotic relationships between terrestrial organisms.

Study of Brownian motion of colloidale particles - Eleonore's experiment

The Brownian motion of colloidal particles is the motion of tiny particles in a fluid at rest. Several experiences regarding to that field are currently running in the International Space Station, which offers the unique property of microgravity. The interest in studying the behavior of colloidal particles is that it finds applications in sectors such as environmental sciences, petrochemistry, chemistry and so on, including daily life. For example, we could be able to create a kind of plastics with better possibilities of recycling, or, a bit funnier, a vinaigrette that we would never have to shake for the components to be blended.

We first built hermetic enclosures containing colloidal particles in water. The chosen colloids had the property to absorb light at 540 nm et reemit it at 560 nm. Therefore, a fluorescence microscopy technology allowed us to observe the reemitted light by placing a camera on the trajectory of the beam. That way, we were able to get the course of many particles on camera and then track them one by one to verify certain properties we were expecting. For example, the motion of the colloids is independent with regards to gravity and the position distribution around the initial point is a gaussian curve.

Regarding the Musk observatory, the sun was very calm during our rotation, but we could observe little prominences on SOL 3. It was such a great opportunity to use this telescope