This year marks the 5th AMASE expedition led by Hans Amundsen (Expedition leader EPX) and Andrew Steele (Science leader - CIW). It promises to be another intense 3 weeks in the arctic field areas that we use as a martian analogue. As in previous years a wealth of people and instruments from across the US and Europe will gather in Longyearbyen before taking the research vessel Lance (http://www.npolar.no/lance/) for the 2 week trip to field areas in the north of the island.  This years goals include the testing of several space flight instrument and the JPL cliffbot rover system. The rover will be able to travel down very steep cliff faces and sample and store up to 4 samples using its robotic arm and scoop before returning up the cliff. This is to simulate caching samples for both Mars sample return and human Mars and Lunar missions were samples of interest are in terrains too dangerous for humans to access. To help in choosing the right samples, the rover uses imaging cameras, a microscope and spectroscopy instrument on the arm of the rover. AMASE 07 will feature 4 instruments that are linked to Mars missions. The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM – Paul Mahaffy) and CheMIN (Dave Blake) instruments that will detect organic molecules and the mineralogy of collected samples onboard the NASA Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission due to launch in 2009. Two other instrument prototypes, the Life Marker Chip (Andrew Steele) and a Raman spectrometer (Fernando Rull) are slated to fly onboard the European Space Agencies ExoMars mission due to launch in 2013.

While no one site on earth can mimic conditions on the Martian surface the sites in Svalbard are unique in offering similar geology to that found in Martian meteorites and sedimentary outcrops that have been analyzed by the Mars Exploration rovers.  The aim of testing instruments in this environment is several fold, to understand the information gained by each instrument and how it relates to the other instruments, to understand how adverse conditions affect the analysis, to define detection limits and finally to give the instrument teams experience in working together before the actual mission. This last point is extremely important as working with a rover on Mars is a different way of doing science. The resources of the rover must be utilized to the best of the teams ability for every analysis. Power, data storage and transmission, prioritizing samples to analyze and just seeing the world through the eyes of the Rover are all skills that must be developed and honed to undertake science on Mars. To help with this and other aspects of this years mission we are being joined by Steve Squyres the chief scientist for the Spirit and Opportunity rover missions currently operating on Mars.

Instruments/Technologies to be deployed on AMASE 2007:

•Fully equipped molecular biology lab•CliffBot rover

•SAM (GCMS onboard MSL)•Chemin (XRD/XRF onboard MSL)

•Sample handling system (onboard MSL)•McDuve (Laser fluorescence)

•Software for sample acquisition during astronaut activities•Handheld Raman

•LAL•ATP

•PCR•SMILE (life marker chip onboard ExoMars)

•Raman/LIBS (onboard ExoMars)

•Wearable computer

Crew list:

Participating Institutions:

• CalTech
• Carnegie Institution of Washington
• CU
• EPX
• ESA
• ISSI
• MGS
• NRK
• NASA-ARC
• NASA-GSFC
• NASA-JPL
• NASA-JSC
• University of Leeds
• UV

Helping the AMASE team this year

UNIS

Polar Institution (Cecille H. von Quillfeldt)

Radisson