About
The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), owned and operated by the Mars Society, is a full-scale analog facility in Utah that supports Earth-based research in pursuit of the technology, operations, and science required for human space exploration. We host an eight-month field season for professional scientists and engineers as well as college students of all levels, in training for human operations on Mars. The relative isolation of the facility allows for rigorous field studies as well as human factors research. Most crews carry out their mission under the constraints of a simulated Mars mission. Most missions are 2-3 weeks in duration, although we have supported longer missions as well. The advantage of MDRS over most facilities for simulated space missions is that the campus is surrounded by terrain that is a geologic Mars analog, which offers opportunities for rigorous field studies as they would be conducted during an actual space mission.