Lockheed Martin has revealed plans to set up a'Mars base camp' orbiting the red planet - and says it hopes to launch it within ten years. Using NASA's Orion spacecraft as the command deck, the orbiting outpost could give astronauts the ability to operate rovers and drones on the surface in real time, helping us better understand the Red Planet and plan for manned missions. 'The time is now,' Lockheed Martin said in a video revealing the project at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Adelaide, Australia, where it also showed off a lander that could eventually take astronauts form the station to the red planet's surface. Using NASA's Orion spacecraft as the command deck, the orbiting outpost could give scientists the ability to operate rovers and drones on the surface in real time, helping us better understand the Red Planet and work out where manned missions doulc land'Sending humans to Mars has always been a part of science fiction, but today we have the capability to make it a reality,' said Lisa Callahan, vice president and general manager of Commercial Civil Space at Lockheed Martin. 'We're proud to have Orion powered-on and completing testing in preparation for its Exploration Mission-1 flight and eventually its journey to Mars.' Mars Base Camp is aligned with NASA's recently-announced lunar Deep Space Gateway approach for developing and testing systems, including Orion, in lunar space before using them to go to Mars.

In 2028, a space station could be circling Mars, if a new concept comes to fruition. As a prelude to human expeditions to the planet's surface, researchers aboard the proposed orbiting lab would aim to answer key questions about the complex world. The six-person Mars Base Camp is led by researchers at aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, who unveiled the concept last year and fleshed out more details of the project here at the 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), held March 21-25 in The Woodlands, Texas. The Mars Base Camp is designed to vastly amplify the collection of imagery and scientific data from multiple sites on the planet over a full year of crewed occupation. This work could help identify the best spots for humans to explore on the Martian surface, Lockheed Martin representatives have said.

Defense and aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin today announced a proposal to establish a science laboratory that will orbit Mars starting in 2028. It will house six astronauts who will spend 10 to 11 months onboard, remotely driving robots, flying drones, and studying samples from the Red Planet in real time in anticipation of landing humans on its surface in the following decade. "We will be able to accomplish more science in just a few months from Mars's orbit than we have in the previous 40 years," Tony Antonelli, former astronaut and now Lockheed's chief technologist for civil space exploration, told The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview. Though the company hasn't released technical details about its Mars Base Camp, or an estimate of how much it would cost, Mr. Antonelli said most of it would be assembled in cislunar space – between the Earth and moon – over a series of missions in the 2020s. It will rely on technologies that Lockheed is developing with NASA now, which should keep the project affordable says Antonelli.

Before our species set foot on the moon, we orbited it first. The same will probably be true for Mars, and on Wednesday, Lockheed Martin plans to unveil its vision for a spacecraft that could make it happen. The "Mars Base Camp," as the company is calling it, would set up a laboratory, staffed by 6 astronauts, in Mars orbit in 2028. Up to now, NASA has outlined the first few steps to Mars. It's building a heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), and working with Lockheed to build the Orion crew capsule.