Spaceward Bound India

The Next Spaceward Bound Project shall take place in Ladakh, India. This project is being jointly coordinated by a few Mars Society Australia members along with researchers at UNSW, NASA Ames, JPL and partner institutions in India.

The Spaceward Bound Program is an educational program developed at NASA Ames Research Center. This brings astrobiologists, scientists and students together to a remote, extreme environment to explore and understand how microbial communities sustain themselves in such biospheres. Earlier expeditions have been to Mohave Desert, Idaho, North Dakota, Australia, New Zealand, Polar regions. For the 2016 edition, we have decided to visit Ladakh, India.

Why Ladakh?
Ladakh offers a cold, high altitude (3500m-5500m above sea level), high UV exposed, dry ecosystem with Mars analogue topological features that tell us heaps about the origin and evolution of our planet's topological features and also about how microbial life has adapted itself to sustain itself in such harsh conditions. Astrobio/geoscientsts would find high passes, permafrost regions, glaciers, hot springs, shallow and palaeo lakes and some of the best high altitude night skies to conduct various types of experiments to help us answer some of the most fundamental questions about 'life'. Like the Facebook page and follow the updates as more information shall be released soon www.facebook.com/SBIndia2016

Spaceward Bound India related conference papers:

The 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference: (https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2017/)

Spaceward Bound India 2016: Presenting Ladakh as an analog region for astrobiology research and human exploration of Moon and Mars.  Read more here.

The Astrobiology Science Conference 2017: (https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/abscicon2017/)

Spaceward Bound India 2016: An Overview of the first Astrobiology Expedition to the Roof of the World. Read more here.