After 10 days in isolation, a group of Georgia Tech students will be returning from Arkansas having completed their first simulated Mars mission.
Southeast Analog is a program run by students at Georgia Tech interested in spaceflight.
The SEA-1 Thalassa mission included six “astronauts” on a simulated Mars habitat in Arkansas and 30 crew in mission control on campus. Students in the Southeast Analog program worked in three shifts around the clock to do astronaut training, spaceflight operations, and research.
Alan Yeung is a graduate student and flight director for the mission. He said the mission had simulated time delays in mission control for a more realistic experience.
“The time it takes for a conversation from Earth to get to Mars is approximately 20 minutes,” Yeung said. “It ranges depending on where we are, but 20 minutes there, 20 minutes back. So that means it could take 40 minutes before the crew can actually tell us something that we’ve told them, and that is a huge challenge.”
During the 10 days, astronauts leave their capsule to complete experiments ranging from soil sampling to tele-operating a rover. These exercises are called extravehicular activities or EVAs.
Sara Kapasi, who is head of research at Southeast Analog, said the group consulted with experts in the industry to develop astronaut procedures that mimic real life.
“There’s them being in isolation, making sure that all their EVAs happen at night so they don’t run into people,” Kapasi said. “They have freeze-dried food that they’re eating the whole time over those 10 days that they have to rehydrate, as well as they exercise for around two hours every day to kind of simulate them not losing any bone when they would be in space.”
This is one of the first student-led analog astronaut missions in the United States.
