Mars Base Camp: Lockheed Martin’s Red Planet Plan in Pictures

Lockheed Martin's Mars Base Camp

The aerospace company Lockheed Martin has an ambitious vision for Mars exploration by astronauts. Called Mars Base Camp, the plan includes sleek landers and huge interplanetary ships to carry humans to Mars. See Lockheed Martin's Mars exploration vision in images here.

In this image, an Orion spacecraft and propulsion stage are arriving near the orbital Mars Base Camp, which serves as a staging ground for Martian exploration.

Orion: The Command Deck

Lockeed Martin's Mars Base Camp is based around NASA's Orion space capsule, which serves as the command deck for the orbiting Mars station. Here, an Orion crew capsule arrives at the station around Mars.

1,000-Day Missions

Astronauts would fly 1,000-day missions to Mars under Lockheed Martin's Mars Base Camp concept.

Collecting Mars Samples

From an orbiting Mars Base Camp, astronauts would be able to collect samples of the Martian surface from robotic probes, as seen in this artist's illustration.

The Excursion Module

One highlight of Lockheed Martin's Mars Base Camp plan is the Excursion Module (pictured at right). The module is an Orion crew capsule and propulsion stage equipped with an airlock and gear for astronauts to explore the moons of Mars.

Exploring a Mars Moon

With the Mars Base Camp Excursion Module, astronauts could visit the Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, to get a closer look.

Two of Everything

Lockheed Martin's Mars Base Camp space station has a symmetrical design, with a propulsion stage and Orion capsule at each end, followed by fuel tanks and habitat modules with crew living space modules at the center.

Mars Base Camp

This side view gives a clearer look at the symmetrical design of Lockheed Martin's Mars Base Camp station. The two conical sections at center are crew living and work space. The golden section are fuel tanks clustered around habitat modules for astronauts. At the outer ends are Orion command capsules and their propulsion stages.

Powered by Sunlight

Four giant commercial solar arrays will generate power for the Mars Base Camp, Lockheed Martin representatives said.

A Lab Around Mars

The Mars Lab component of Lockheed Martin's Base Camp concept takes center stage in this artist's illustration.

Building Up for Mars

To make Mars Base Camp a reality, Lockheed Martin envisions building the station near Earth first. The experience to build such a station would come from NASA's planned Deep Space Gateway, a station it plans to build in orbit around the moon as a springboard for lunar and deep-space missions. Mars Base Camp would be the next step after that Deep Space Gateway, Lockheed Martin representatives said.