Join us for our January Tech Talk session with this months event focusing on the Mars Desert Research Station. This virtual meeting is free to all and provides you an opportunity to learn more about this unique facility. Our very own Elizabeth Balga will walk all of us through a tour of her recent time spent at the MDRS and will answer questions the audience may have.
The Mars Desert Research Station is the largest and longest-running Mars surface research facility in the world and is one of two simulated Mars analog habitats owned and operated by the Mars Society.
The MDRS station was built in the early 2000's near Hanksville, Utah, in the western United States. It is crewed by small teams of 6-8 people who carry out missions at the facility to conduct scientific research, typically for two weeks (although some crew visits have occasionally lasted for 2-3 months).
The MDRS campus includes a two-story habitat (referred to as "the Hab"), a greenhouse (referred to as "the GreenHab"), the solar-related Musk Observatory, a robotic observatory, an engineering pod (referred to as "the RAM"), and a science building (referred to as "the Science Dome").