A new NASA paper provides the most detailed map to date of near-surface water ice on the Red Planet.
So you want to build a Mars base. Where to start? Like any human settlement, it would be best located near accessible water. Not only will water be crucial for life-support supplies, it will be used for everything from agriculture to producing the rocket propellant astronauts will need to return to Earth.
Schlepping all that water to Mars would be costly and risky. That’s why NASA has engaged scientists and engineers since 2015 to identify deposits of Martian water ice that could be within reach of astronauts on the planet’s surface. But, of course, water has huge scientific value, too: If present-day microbial life can be found on Mars, it would likely be nearby these water sources as well.
A new study appearing in Nature Astronomy includes a comprehensive map detailing where water ice is most and least likely to be found in the planet’s northern hemisphere. Combining 20 years of data from NASA’s Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the now-inactive Mars Global Surveyor, the paper is the work of a project called Subsurface Water Ice Mapping, or SWIM. The SWIM effort is led by the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“The next frontier for Mars is for human explorers to get below the surface and look for signs of microbial life,” said Richard Davis, who leads NASA’s efforts to find Martian resources in preparation for sending humans to the Red Planet. “We realize we need to make new maps of subsurface ice to improve our knowledge of where that ice is for both scientific discovery and having local resources astronauts can rely on.”
In the near future, NASA plans to hold a workshop for multidisciplinary experts to assess potential human-landing sites on Mars based on this research and other science and engineering criteria. This mapping project could also inform surveys by future orbiters NASA hopes to send to the Red Planet.
NASA recently announced that, along with three international space agencies, the signing of a statement of intent to explore a possible International Mars Ice Mapper mission concept. The statement brings the agencies together to establish a joint concept team to assess mission potential as well as partnership opportunities between NASA, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (the Italian Space Agency), the Canadian Space Agency, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Credit: NASA
