![]() ![]() These vehicles would allow the crew to explore beyond the range permitted by their space suits while allowing them to operate in a shirtsleeve environment. Remote surface exploration in regions around the habitat complex is accomplished by using pressurized rovers. The first human being would set foot on the surface of Mars, some time in the 2030s or 2040s.Īt the end of their month, they’d climb into their ascent vehicle, return to Phobos and then all the astronauts would come home again. When the conditions were right, two crew would transfer to the descent vehicle, and land on Mars, spending about a month down on the surface while the other two astronauts would remain on Phobos. ![]() Credit: NASA/JPLįinally, a crew would launch, make the journey to the Phobos station and then prepare for a landing on Mars. There’d be more supplies and a 75-tonne Mars landing vehicle which would wait in a high Mars orbit. Then they’d come home, maybe even making a side visit over to Deimos on the way back, taking another 250 days to return.īased on the lessons learned from the Phobos mission, the actual landing on Mars would take another six SLS launches. The astronauts would live on the Phobos station for about 500 days, performing science on Phobos. The fourth launch would take an Orion capsule with 4 astronauts to Mars, following a 200 to 225-day trajectory to bring them to Phobos. The first three rockets would carry supplies, a Phobos habitat, and a return vehicle for astronauts to come home. Setting up a presence on Phobos would require four launches of the Space Launch System Block 2, but SpaceX Starships would work nicely too. Graphic shows all the dome, barrel, ring and engine components used to assemble the five major structures of the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) in Block 1 configuration. And finally, there would be the move to a permanent presence on Mars. Then a longer one-year expedition would be carried out. Next, astronauts would go down to the surface for a one-month stay. First, missions would be sent to Phobos to set up infrastructure on the Moon. They suggested that a campaign to send humans to Mars would be broken up into four major stages. In 2015, three engineers from NASA JPL proposed “ A Minimal Architecture for Humans Missions to Mars”, proposing a series of missions which establish a beachhead on one of Mars’ moons first, before sending humans down to the planet. ![]() A new study led by The University of Texas at Austin has found remnants of ancient ice caps buried in the north polar region. A view of Mars showing the planet’s northern polar ice cap. And if you want to go from Mars back to Earth, you need a velocity change of 6 km/s. In order to go from the surface of Mars to low orbit, you need a velocity change of 3.6 km/s. So what would it take to set up a base on these moons, and why is it any better than just going directly to Mars.Įven though it’s less massive than the Earth, Mars still has a significant gravity well. Arizona)/NASAĭeimos is smaller, just 15 kilometers across at its longest part, and orbits Mars every 30 hours at a much higher altitude of 23,460 kilometers. The Martian Moon of Deimos, as pictured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The moon orbits above Mars at an altitude of 5,989 kilometers and takes only 7 hours and 39 minutes to complete an orbit around the planet. It’s covered in fine powder made from eons of micrometeorite impacts, and has absolutely no atmosphere. Planetary scientists think it was either a captured asteroid, or the debris from an ancient impact a long time ago. It’s similar in composition to a C-type, or carbonaceous chondrite asteroid. Phobos is the larger of Mars’ moons, and is 27 kilometers on its longest dimension. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Initially, scientists had thought the grooves were created by the massive impact that made Stickney crater (lower right). New modeling indicates that the grooves on Mars’ moon Phobos could be produced by tidal forces – the mutual gravitational pull of the planet and the moon. Instead of going directly from Earth to the surface of Mars, humanity could set up a station on these rocky moons, a base camp, for a serious and safer attempt on Mars. But Mars’ two moons, Phobos and Deimos offer an interesting alternative. ![]()
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