News

Detailed Design Work Continues

More detailed design work has been done towards vehicle certifications and manufacturing plans. Most of this work is done by project Engineer, Bruce Armstrong. We hope that by having everything planned in detailed from the start, we will save money by cutting down on labour costs due to uncertainty and mistakes. But a lot of precious time is taken up by the need for all this documentation; we must find ways to spend less time describing things and more time actually building them.

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Notification of Annual General Meeting

All MSA Financial Members: In accordance with our Articles of Association, the time has come to notify members of the Annual General Meeting of the Mars Society Australia Inc, which will be held on Friday 22 August 2003, 2pm, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 54 Terrace Road, Perth.

Click here for further details.
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Chassis Moves to Cannington

The Rover chassis was moved from the manager's carport in Fremantle, WA, where it had been undergoing inspection and rebuilding. During its time there, the concept and design work on the pressurised body shell was substantially reworked. An important development was a wooden mockup which helped verify design ideas and dimensions with respect to ergonomic fitting of the human driver to the controls, a complex but vital design issue for any vehicle. Once this was built and tested, measurements from the mockup were transferred into the AutoCAD design package we're using for the plans. Recently the mockup was dismounted and the chassis was shifted to a contractor's workshop in Cannington, where assembly of the real bodywork will shortly begin. This is a major landmark in the construction of the rover.

Night work on...
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3 Down, 1 to Go: Mars Launch Countdown Begins

A flurry of missions to Mars, to explore the surface and sub-surface of the Red Planet, has commenced with the successful launch of the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft, and the NASA rover 'Spirit' to be shortly followed by a second rover 'Opportunity'.. These missions have the potential to reveal whether life exists or existed on Mars, and will provide an unprecedented range of new data about the planet.

Click here to download MSA's pre-launch media release.
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Graham Mann talks on Mars analog exploration in Australia

At Astrofest in Perth earlier this year, Dr Graham Mann, Project Manager of the MSA's Starchaser Marsupial Rover gave a public talk on the MSA's activities in Australia. To experience this audiovisual presentation, you will need Microsoft PowerPoint and an MP3 player, and then click on the links below together: Powerpoint and MP3 audio.
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Conferences to Watch For

Over the following months Australia will be hosting a diverse range of conferences relating to space and planetary sciences.

Click here for a full conference calendar.
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Conference Update

AMEC 2003
August 22-24
Perth, Western Australia


Don’t forget to register for AMEC 2003 and take advantage of the earlybird registration. Click here to find out more, including a Call for Papers and secure Online Registration. AMEC is the annual Mars Society conference and will bring together researchers, academics and Mars enthusiasts from around the country and internationally, to find out the latest developments on human Mars exploration and Mars analogue research.
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Extension of Deadline for AMEC 2003 Papers

The Convener of the 3rd Australian Mars Exploration Conference announced an extended deadline for papers presented for this years conference. The new deadline is the 30th of June 2003. Click here to find out more.
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Successful Joint Canadian-Australian Expedition at MDRS Now Completed

Six Australians from Mars Society Australia – James Waldie, Dr Jonathan Clarke, Guy Murphy, Jennifer Laing, Graham Mann and Dr Steve Dawson , have spent time at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) (MDRS) in Utah for Expedition One - a month long research mission in conjunction with the Mars Society of Canada.

You can read more, view photographs and follow the progress of the Crew 14 mission until completion by checking the reports at the Mars Desert Research Station website at http://www.marssociety.org/MDRS/fs02/ Read the press release and see the...
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MSA NSW Seminar Series Begins in 2003

Beginning in March 2003 MSA NSW is proud to present a series of seminars by prominent speakers from a variety of fields on topics related to the scientific, engineering and social aspects of Mars exploration. See the NSW Branch home page for details.
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