FMARS 2009 A Scientific Mission by the

Mars Society

W. Vernon Kramer – DMC Geology Instructor FMARS 2009 Commander

Mars Society

An international organization devoted the studies of sustaining a human settlement on Mars

This is done by performing simulated Mars missions where participants live in a Mars habitat and work outside in simulated space suits

MDRS near Hanksville, UT

The Mars Society maintains a second habitat near Resolute on Devon Island

About 600 miles North of Arctic Circle

Largest uninhabited islandsize of West Virginia

Haughton Crater

~ 30 MY old meteor crater; ~23 km in diameter; Arctic desert

An ideal environment for a Mars simulation

Stop for a moment to meet the crew of FMARS 2009

Meet at Resolute, Nunavut on July 28, 2009

Population less than 500

Home for the month of July for six Mars settlers25 feet in diameter and ~ 20 feet high

Outside in “simulation”

Travel by ATV and all outside activity with suits

Just like on Mars

All mapping: UTMNAD83/WGS84 bordering Zone 16 using Tule, Greenland

10 meter contours

FMARS at 8373.621 N; 420.731 E

Haughton Crater IOL – Inuit Owned Lands

Geologic map

Notice the red dots

Hydrothermal pipes

Examples of a hydrothermal pipeOf the more than 70 pipes, most were found by walking over the terrain (without a space suit)

Our mission is to “find” these various types of “pipes’ with a UAV and sample the pipes for useful minerals (all within a space suit, helmet and thick gloves!

Then we will further test these with EM geophysics

Remotely controlled Prioria Maveric UAS with GPS, with cameras that can take high resolution color and infrared photos

Nikon CoolPix P6000 with geotagging

All sampling will be GPS tagged with Nikon donated cameras

All field data will be collected using a DMC loaned Trimble GeoXM

(with training by John Nelson - DMC)

A variety of other GPS units will be used for navigation (including loaners from DMC)

And all GPS data will be integrated using ARCMAP (from DMC IT, with training by DMC John Nelson)

Traverse of an unmanned rover for a couple of months

The reality of Mars, a +1,000 M hill of sulfate mineralization

By men in space suits in a few days

We must find usable minerals on Mars for this to happen!