HMP Research Station Field Update July 14, 2005

Logistical and research activities at the HMP Research Station are moving ahead smoothly. Dr Pascal Lee (Mars Inst, SETI Inst, & NASA), Project Lead, remains in Resolute Bay to coordinate key logistics and research payload forwarding for the 2005 field campaign.

Field operations are currently in the care of Dr. Stephen Braham (Mars Inst., Simon Fraser U.), Canadian Project Lead for the HMP, with Mr. John W. Schutt (Mars Inst.) as Base Camp Manager. Dr. Gordon Osinski (Canadian Space Agency (CSA)), Dr. John Ferris, MD (Mars Inst.), Mr. Jack Brezina (Mars Inst.), and Ms. A C Hitch (Mars Inst.) have also been providing critical logistical support for camp start-up.

The Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse research team, led by Dr. Alain Berinstain (CSA, U. of Guelph), continues to check, test and validate the Greenhouse’s remote monitoring and control systems in preparation for a new year of remote operations.

Dr. Jean-Marc Comptois MD, Chief Flight Surgeon of the CSA, has begun implementing a series of diverse research experiments in field expeditionary medicine and telemedicine with application to space medicine and, more broadly, to remote medical support on Earth.

Dr. Oli DeWeck (MIT) and his team are continuing a comprehensive inventory and preliminary analysis of the HMP RS’s assets and supplies as part of a NASA-supported study to define requirements and strategies for interplanetary logistics planning and implementation. The MIT Team has also begun the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device) Experiment in which selected items of supplies are tagged and tracked with micro-transceiving systems.

No additional flights were launched to the HMP RS today as other field projects in the Arctic have required urgent flight support from the Polar Continental Shelf Project in Resolute Bay.