The Mars Analogue Research Station (MARS) Programme is an international effort spearheaded by The Mars Society to establish a network of prototype research centres where scientists and engineers can live and work as if they were on Mars, to develop the protocols and procedures that will be required for human operations on Mars, and to test equipment that may be carried and used by human mission to the Red Planet. In order to achieve these goals, operations at the Habitat Units are performed under "Mars simulation" conditions. This means that once a crew is in a unit, barring a serious medical event or emergency, they live and work as astronauts would on Mars:
- They cannot leave the unit without donning a simulated space suit
- They cannot communicate directly with anyone outside of the unit without a built-in time delay in the communication - the distance between Earth and Mars makes direct conversation impossible
- They can only use the equipment, tools and food available to them inside the habitat.
Each crew spends between 2 weeks and a month living in a habitat unit, performing the kind of work astronauts will be expected to carry out on Mars: collecting rock samples from the surface and examining them back in the habitat; conducting life science experiments; studying the local geology and geomorphology, and so on. They have even modified their schedules to live by “Mars time,” which is 39 minutes longer than a normal 24-hour Earth day.
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