Introduction to Mars Analog Mission: AMADEE20 and Exploration Cascade

Analog missions are the windows to future exploration to different planetary surfaces, e.g., Mars, the Moon, and asteroids, by playing a tremendous role in problem-solving, know-how and lesson learned in space research. AMADEE-20 is the Mars Analog Mission of the Austrian Space Forum (OEWF), will be held in Ramon Crater-Negev Desert, Israel between 15 October and 15 November 2020. The mission is mainly in fields of geosciences, astrobiology, engineering, life sciences, communications, and medical applications. Moreover, it provides data on the limitations and strengths of human-robotic exploration at every stage of the mission and, presents how to combine those two significant components for the scientific explorations. 

Ramon crater provides similarities to various Mars surface features, e.g., typical terrain with a wide range of sand-rocky surface and inclination, for the 13^th mission of OeWF. AMADE-20 has already come forward with its mission architecture development and its evolving algorithm “Exploration Cascade” which is defining an efficient deployment sequence, providing a framework for the search of life on Mars (space analogies). It was first demonstrated at the last mission AMADEE-18 (Oman, February 2018) and became a critical methodological tool for AMADEE-20. Notably, this model provides a solid layout for all future analog missions by bridging different parties to avoid the human-robotic missions’ complexities, taking into account instrument requirements, flight planning border conditions, environmental dynamics and (ground-based) data processing pipeline limitations. This workflow defines when and where to deploy instruments, expected data transfer times to the Mission Support Center on Earth and how fast the data processing can lead to knowledge influencing the decision-making processes of the flight planning teams.

Here, we would like to present our upcoming analog mission; AMADEE-20 and discuss the mission development processes with all aspects including the Exploration Cascade.