Mars Base Camp

Mars Base Camp (MBC) is a crewed Mars laboratory orbiter concept under study commissioned by NASA from Lockheed Martin in the US. It would use both future and proven concepts as well as the Orion MPCV, also built by Lockheed Martin.

The Mars Base Camp concept has been proposed to NASA as a possible version of the Deep Space Transport, a crewed interplanetary spacecraft to support science exploration missions to Mars of up to 1,000 days. It would be part of a larger architecture that includes the Lunar Gateway space station. As of April 2018, the Mars transit vehicle is still a concept to be studied, and NASA has not officially proposed the mission in an annual U.S. federal government budget cycle.

The purpose of MBC would be to conduct real-time communication science, both in Mars orbit and on the surface of its moons (Deimos and Phobos), and serve as a proving ground in preparing humans for future missions to Mars’s surface.