Developing High-Fidelity Martian Regolith Simulants

Exploring and developing permanent infrastructure on Mars requires the development of technologies to enable safe and efficient operations, from landing, roving, and extravehicular activities (EVAs) to prospecting, evaluating, acquiring, extracting, and utilizing local resources. Martian regolith is likely to be the main resource used for initial Martian in situ resource utilization (ISRU) to lessen the amount of resources and supplies that must be launched at high cost from Earth and take up precious cargo space.