Last week, the Hypatia Mars association presented the second mission of female researchers of different ages and disciplines, who will return from February 2 to 15 to the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in the Utah desert, United States. There, a new crew of analog astronauts will live under conditions of isolation, coinciding with the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (February 11).

The Hypatia II mission will study the female body in extreme space simulation conditions, where the exclusively female crew will live for 15 days as if on a manned mission to Mars. Some of the human factors to be investigated include menstruation, nutrition, physical activity, circadian sleep-wake rhythms, and other biological variables related to stress, such as heart rate, body temperature, and blood oxygen levels.

Gender Bias in the Astronaut Profession

Currently, only 1 in 10 astronauts are women. The lack of female crews leads to a significant bias in the available data, including information on the effects of a space mission on menstruation, nutrition, physical activity, circadian rhythms, and other biological variables related to stress.

One of the objectives of Hypatia II is to improve the understanding of the effects that a space mission or an interplanetary journey may have on the female body, in collaboration with various hospitals and leading research institutes in Catalonia, such as the Sant Pau Research Institute, Sant Pau Hospital, the Global Health Institute (ISGlobal), and the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital in Badalona.

“At Hypatia, we advocate for a more inclusive and diverse science that values the contribution of female researchers, especially in space exploration,” explains mathematician Ariadna Farrés Basiana, commander of the Hypatia II mission and a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Hypatia Promotes Fifteen Research and Outreach Projects

The Hypatia II crew will conduct experiments and test equipment to study the feasibility of a real mission to Mars under isolation conditions, with restrictions on food, water, and communications with Earth, in an environment with an orography and conditions reminiscent of the Red Planet. The mission collaborates with about twenty research centers and institutes, universities, companies, and schools worldwide.

The European Space Agency (ESA) funds one of the satellite calibration projects. The Hypatia II crew members will install a trihedral in the Utah desert during extravehicular activities outside the MDRS, allowing satellites to accurately position themselves and measure terrain elevation—a technology already used for mapping oceans and glaciers.

Sustainability is another priority of Hypatia II. One of the scientific projects will test solutions to improve the energy efficiency of solar panels. The goal is to prevent photovoltaic installations from losing efficiency due to the accumulation of Martian dust on their surface, which could endanger astronauts’ lives.

Regarding outreach, another project will design a virtual tour of the MDRS to highlight sustainable practices and circular economy principles implemented by the crew, inspiring responsible solutions for Earth.

For the first time, a Hypatia mission includes a geologist among its crew. One of the challenges of space travel is collecting samples from other planetary bodies, such as the Moon, for analysis back on Earth. This project aims to optimize rock analysis using an X-ray fluorescence gun, among other techniques.