Austrian Mars Analog Mission Success

The Austrian Space Forum (OeWF) concluded its 4-week Mars Analog Mission AMADEE-24 that had been hosted by the Armenian Aerospace Agency.

The analog astronauts and supporting teams in Armenia and Austria overcame some challenging situations to successfully conclude this emulation of a crewed exploration of the Red Planet.

200 scientists from 26 countries whose equipment, rovers and experiments had been chosen for the expedition now await transfer of the obtained data.

The Austrian Space Forum, a private organization made up of aerospace specialists, has already organized 13 missions, the most recent in Israel in 2021.

"Our international teams at the Mission Support Center in Vienna, Austria had to re-schedule and prioritize an already complex mission plan in close cooperation with the internationally involved scientists, taking into account many dependencies of simulated spaceflight operations," Gernot Grömer, director of the Austrian Space Forum said.

“Thanks to an outstanding flight control team and a formidable can-do-done attitude of the field crews, most of the experiments were conducted successfully and the scientists received test data now being analyzed for a later publication in peer-reviewed papers.”

In Armenia the OeWF’s analog astronauts were supported by a team of experts Ground Operations and Support Team who safeguarded the analog astronauts during out-of-habitat activities (EVAs) and serviced the rovers.

AMADEE-24 was a Mars analog simulation in Armenia, managed by the Austrian Space Forum hosted by the Armenian Aerospace Agency.

A small field crew of highly trained analog astronauts with spacesuit simulators lived in isolation in a specially designed habitat and conducted experiments provided by international scientists preparing for future human and robotic Mars exploration missions.