The plan is to build a spacecraft capable of housing a small crew of mice. Hurled into low Earth orbit, this troop of "right stuff" rodents will live aboard the spinning satellite - a specially designed craft that creates artificial gravity identical to the true gravity field found on Mars.
Spending seven-weeks in orbit, the mice will live, grow, and develop in a Mars-like gravity environment. That is one-third the gravity of their native Earth. Then the satellite and its precious cargo are to reenter and land safely back on terra firma.
The rodent crew will include some pregnant mice. They will give birth in orbit, with their offspring growing and maturing entirely in Martian gravity. No one knows how altered gravity fields affect mammalian development.
If successful, the Mars Gravity Biosatellite is expected to reveal clues about the overall health of humans sojourning to Mars and, once there, whether settlement of the planet is feasible.
Rodent record
The job of spacecraft building has been split into three major subsystems: MIT is concentrating on the payload module that holds the science experiments. The University of Washington is fabricating the carrier bus that supports the payload, providing power, communications and keeps the satellite's attitude in check. Australia's University of Queensland is handling the biosatellite's entry, decent and landing system.
"There are a number of aspects of the mission that are unique," said Paul Wooster, Program Manager of the overall effort and based at MIT's Mars Gravity Program Office.
"We are the first ever to look at partial gravity effects on mammals. There's never been a biosatellite that has lasted this long on orbit. This will be the longest rodent mission ever flown," Wooster said.
In addition, the international collaboration and multi-disciplinary work between the students is matchless, Wooster said. Daunting engineering challenges are ahead, and all those need resolution if the spacecraft is to fly in 2005. "This mission is by no means easy. Universities have already been involved in numbers of small satellite programs. But all in all, none of them have been as complex as this," he said.
Trial runs
Audrey Schaffer, Deputy Project Manager at MIT for the mission, said that several seven-week duration ground tests of the closed-loop life-support system are scheduled. "Prototyping and testing will help us see what problems we're going to run into, and how we can overcome those," she said.
At MIT, trial runs with mice are planned to first help master a waste collection system, Schaffer said. Checkout of atmosphere and filtration hardware will follow those evaluations.
"Perhaps the most challenging aspect of this is getting the money to make it happen," Wooster said. Projected overall cost, including a still-to-be-determined ride into space, is on the order of $12.5 million. Money from universities, as well as private donors, helped kick-start the project. However, larger contributions will be needed, he added.
"I think the Mars Gravity Biosatellite can definitely set a precedent," Wooster said, "as far as universities having students involved in very complicated, high value missions. We're going to make this happen."
No reinventing the wheel
Spending upwards of a year already on biosatellite details is Jason Hoogland, project manager for the work at the University of Queensland's Centre for Hypersonics.
At the University of Queensland, their attention is focused on the reentry vehicle that brings the specimens back to Earth. One possible landing spot is Australia, although other locations, such as Utah and New Mexico are under consideration too.
"The design philosophy for the whole mission is not to go reinvent the wheel," Hoogland emphasized.
A substantial ground test program for the reentry capsule, the thermal protection shielding, parachute, and landing hardware is on tap. The University itself is equipped with test gear and expertise to help on the project as substantial work is underway there on the HyShot program.
University of Queensland researchers mid-month claimed success for the world`s first flight test of supersonic combustion, the process used in an air-breathing supersonic ramjet engine, known as a scramjet. Data collected during a July 30 HyShot rocket flight showed the historic event had indeed occurred.
The Mars Gravity Biosatellite is going to be tough to do, Hoogland said. "Obviously the moment of truth will be when it actually flies. We're all going to be on the edge of our seats for that," he added.
Setting the bar a notch higher
"There's definitely a lot of work to do," said Marcus Holzinger, University of Washington's project manager and lead spacecraft engineer on the biosatellite.
For their part, Holzinger's team is responsible for power, command and control of the spacecraft, as well as piping down data to the ground. Lastly, the University of Washington group is responsible for spinning the satellite at the correct rate to produce the Mars artificial gravity field for the mice.
Erika Brown, Science Director at MIT for the Mars Gravity Biosatellite project, said the satellite research is a cut above past Russian and American biology missions.
"Many missions have flown more animals and larger payloads. But we're setting the bar a notch higher with the first mammalian births in space…the first study of how Martian gravity affects physiology…and the longest rodent mission ever flown. Plus, we're working to do it for only a fraction of the cost," Brown said.
Brown said that the science team is busily studying ways to keep the mice happy and healthy throughout the mission. "So now is the time for lots of reading and synthesis," she said.
Work is on full-speed. A preliminary design review of the biosatellite is less than six months away. A more intense critical design review is about a year from now.
"With appropriate funding," Brown concluded, "we will start building for our mice their spacecraft next fall. Now, if we could only figure out how to send graduate students."
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