On Monday (August 1), a group of eight researchers and their colleagues headed north to the High Arctic to spend a month at the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) base on Devon Island, about 15 degrees south of the North Pole. The group includes base founder and campaign leader, Dr. Pascal Lee, a group of researchers from the MIT Haystack Observatory, other researchers and support staff, and I am the sole media representative.
This will be HMP’s return to base since 2019 due to COVID-19 restrictions, status uncertain – weather and polar bears (Opens in a new tab) It can cause damage to structures and support equipment. The site’s generators and ATVs have gone through multiple freeze/thaw cycles, and increasingly hungry polar bears may have made their way into some lightly built habitat – they’ve tried it before. While satellite images do not show any widespread damage, success is far from certain.
Before we begin the series of four to six flights over two days that are necessary to reach the remote outpost, we must pack the necessary equipment and prepare ourselves for the severe weather. While the nearest weather station reports temperatures from 34 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 7 degrees Celsius), with humidity hovering around 90%, the weather on Devon Island—the world’s largest uninhabited island—could be very different. , with high winds that often cause temperatures to drop due to the cold wind.
Related: NASA’s Haughton-Mars Project: Summer on a ‘planet’ close to home
For travel to HMP, we are restricted to 50 lbs (22.6 kg) of checked baggage for personal baggage and one hand baggage. On casual travel, this isn’t a challenge as anything forgotten or overlooked can be picked up at a nearby Walmart or mom-and-pop store. But at Devon, we’ll handle whatever we carry, so cold weather clothing is critical, and nothing mechanical or electronic will likely be replaced. The HMP base already has spare parts from some things, but we’re told not to rely on them.
In my case, that means camera gear and laptops are critical commodities, and backups for every item that corrodes or is temperature sensitive are essential. Batteries hate cold, lenses hate wind-blown grit, and everything electronic likes to fail at critical times. Duplicate technology gets heavy quickly, but since failing an important component would put me on vacation for a month, backups are a must. I’ve been preparing for weeks, and three days after leaving, I’m packing, emptying, disposing and repacking for the third time.
The base is operated by the Mars Institute, and was founded and built in the late 1990s by Lee, a planetary geologist and co-founder of the institute. Lee is passionate about the project, and as he now jokes, “I’ve lived in California for 25 years, but I didn’t spend the summer here until COVID.” When asked if he was looking forward to returning to his analog base on Mars, he smiled widely. “I wouldn’t say it’s fun, but yes, it’s a wonderful place and another world, with a lot to offer to understand future Mars exploration.”
The base, abbreviated HMP (you can find it on Google Maps under “Haughton-Mars Project Base Camp”) is located on the edge of the Haughton Impact Crater, a 12.5-mile (20 km) feature formed about 23 million years ago by the impact of an asteroid or comet. At about 75 degrees latitude. It is the largest impact structure in the northern regions, and along with many other Mars-like features on the island, makes Haughton probably the best counterpart to the red planet on Earth.
The base of the HMP is made up of a group of eight structures – two solid buildings and a number of vinyl-coated frames that make up the rest of the campground. The Haughton-Mars project is supported by NASA, the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, and a variety of other sources, and NASA provides several experiments that will be conducted there each year, adding to the research that is done there.
An advance team consisting of Lee, Polar Veteran and HMP Base Administrator John Schott, myself and a handful of others, will complete the final leg of the flight to conduct an aerial survey of the base and, weather and ground conditions permitting, landing at the HMP airstrip. Assuming everything is in order, the remaining participants will follow the second Twin Otter flight, along with about 25 boxes of radio astronomy equipment.
My next post will detail our arrival in Canada, handling of comprehensive COVID-related safety protocols, and our departure for Devon Island. I’ll see you later.
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