Crew Commander Ariadna Farrés completes Hypatia II mission!
Ariadna Farrés, Assistant Research Scientist with GPHI/UMBC, served as Crew Commander of the Hypatia II mission, which occurred February 2 - 15, 2025. "Hypatia Mars is a female-led organization composed of a multidisciplinary, intergenerational team from Catalonia and Spain." The team participated in this mission at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), a Mars analog station, in the Utah desert. (The Hypatia I mission was held from April 16 - 29, 2023.)
"During these missions, crews engage in high-quality space-related research and meticulously simulate their day-to-day life on Mars. Confined to a small space and deprived of the luxuries and resources of Earth, they experience the challenges that astronauts may face on the Red Planet." For additional information about the organization and the missions, visit the Hypatia Mars website.
Dr. Farrés recently was featured in an Espai Mèdia article, which can be translated from Catalan to English. She was part of both Hypatia missions; for the second one, the team had 15 research projects to conduct, which included "obtaining data about the wear and tear among the crew members." According to Dr. Farrés, "the objective is to carry out research in projects that bring us a little closer to Mars and inspire the scientific [opportunities for girls]."
Additionally, the timeline of Hypatia II included the International Day of Women and Girls in Science; to honor this day, "the team worked with Open Cosmos to deploy a 40×40-meter cross during their extravehicular activities (EVA) outside the base, so that satellites in low Earth orbit [could] capture it."
Learn more about Hypatia Mars and the missions by reading this National Air and Space Museum podcast transcript from February 2025, which features Dr. Farrés, Dr. Estel Blay, and Carla Conejo Gonzalez.
Tags:
Posted: February 26, 2025, 2:30 PM
