Overview of AMADE-20 Mars Analog Mission and Insights from AMADEE-24
Authors: Özdemir Seda , Grömer Gernot , Gruber Sophie 
Published: September 2022

&lt;p&gt;AMADEE-20 is the latest Mars Analog Mission of the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF), conducted in Israel in the Negev Desert and hosted by the Israel Space Agency.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;The 40 km long and 11 km wide Ramon Crater is an erosive crater unveiling a geological window of different sedimentary and volcanic processes with formations of sandstone, shales at the crater base, and mostly limestone and dolomite by the crater wall and represents sediments of the Thetis paleo-ocean with several volcanic and plutonic episodes including paleo-volcanos and granites. This nascency is accompanied by a semi-arid climate with dry summer (June &amp;#8211; September), mild winter (December- February), and sparse vegetation only growing on the high rim hillslope and wadis (dry streams). Therefore, the Ramon Crater (Maktesh Ramon) presents remarkable geologic and geomorphological structures comparable to the Red Planet. Hence, beyond traditional analog mission applications, such as equipment behavior and evolving the know-how on crew management, we had the opportunity to develop research methods to catalyse the visibility of planetary explorations and develop structures for life-detection systematics and geoscientific techniques.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;Two main segments of the mission; the mission support center (MSC)- on Earth time- and the field crew- on Mars time- were emulating a planetary surface mission by keeping a 2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;0min time delay &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;(10 min per signal direction) &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;to account for the average signal travel time between Earth and Mars. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;The &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;MSC &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;was staffed by a &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Flight Director&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Biomedical Engineer&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;s,&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt; Earth Communicator&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;s,&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt; CONTACTS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;,&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Records Manager&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Procedure monitoring&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Human Factors, Remote Science Support&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;,&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt; Flightplan Team&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Ground Support &amp; Security&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Science Data Officer, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;and &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Media Communication&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;The field crew was divided into two elements; I) the flight crew (6 AAs) with the analog astronauts, who conducted the experiments, and ii) the on-site support team (12 crew members) who provided support without interfering with the experiments or interacting directly with the AAs. Thereby, also maintaining a secured parameter and safety infrastructure for the simulation &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;All major workflows of the mission &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;were&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt; defined via the OeWF Standard Operating Procedures&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;The&amp;#160;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;flight &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;crew habitat &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;was&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt; provided by the Israel Space Agency and D-Mars, based upon the foldable D-Mars station design, complemented with a new module &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;comprised of a &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Command module&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;,&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt; Engineering/Science compartment&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Crew quarters&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Storage space&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Mess&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt; and &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;Hygiene module&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;To provide a realistic platform for the experiments, isolation protocols&lt;/span&gt; were in place&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt; ensur&lt;/span&gt;ed&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;. &lt;/span&gt;In total, 25 experiments were conducted from the fields such as engineering and robotics, human-robot interactions, health sciences, life sciences and geosciences. Outcomes of these experiments and the AMADEE-20 mission will be presented. This included an innovative science strategy, the exploration cascade which is an algorithm providing an efficient deployment sequence of scientific investigations (Groemer and Ozdemir, 2020).&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;EN-US&quot;&gt;In the meantime, the preparations for the 14&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; analog mission of the OeWF, AMADEE-24 have started. With a comparable mission architecture as described above, we&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;span lang=&quot;UZ-CYR&quot;&gt;will be soliciting proposals for research experiments, to be selected peer-review process. These missions are a formidable platform for testing technologies, instruments and science workflows as well as it is a research opportunity for human factor studies. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;REFERENCES:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Groemer G. and Ozdemir S. 2020. Planetary Analog Field Operations as a Learning Tool. Front. Astron. Space Sci. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2020.00032&lt;/p&gt;
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