This is the application form for the 10th and 11th Purdue Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) crews, an effort supported by various departments at Purdue University to motivate participation from its students, faculty, and staff in expanding the knowledge about and performing meaningful contribution toward future human space missions, in particular human-class Mars missions.

Certain number of students from various departments of Purdue University will be selected in the team comprising of 6-7 primary crew members with some backups. Each crew rotation duration is two weeks (a Sunday to a Saturday) with a one day overlap for transitioning with the previous crew. The crew rotations for this year are from December 14 to December 27 and December 28 to January 10.

The deadline to apply is 11:59 P.M. EDT on May 12, 2025 (Monday). There are two phases to the selection process. In the first phase the applicants will be evaluated based on the merit of their research ideas, past performances, preliminary behavioral input, etc. In phase 2, tests would be conducted on the behavioral aspect and other MDRS worthy features of the candidates that are desired for a successful rotation. 

Background on MDRS in general can be found here: Previous Field Seasons. An example of mission summary comprising good MDRS research can be found here: Mission Summary of Crew 202.

Questions can be sent to marssocietyofpurdue@gmail.com