Novosibirsk Scientists Prepare Robots for Future Mars Base
Novosibirsk State University researchers are using training robots to practice operations for a future Mars base, with a testing ground modeled on Martian terrain planned as the next step.
Yury Fendik, head of the Novosibirsk branch of the All-Russian Society of Inventors and Innovators, said at the Tekhnoprom forum that machines are expected to handle all of the base’s life-support operations.
Researchers from NSU’s Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics are working on the project. The team currently has six members and plans to expand. The regional branch of the All-Russian Society of Inventors and Innovators is supporting the project.
Conditions on Mars are too harsh for people to work there continuously, so robots would handle all heavy and routine tasks, including extracting minerals, obtaining water and growing food. That would allow the Mars base to operate without regular supplies from Earth. The base itself is planned for canyons rather than the planet’s exposed surface, where conditions are less extreme.
