The Martian Autonomous Research Station, or M.A.R.S., is a concept for a station to be placed on Mars that is able to send data to Earth via a telemetry stream. The prototype utilises four sensors: a light intensity, barometric pressure, temperature, and relative humidity sensor. The readings collected from these sensors are aggregated and transmitted wirelessly using a 433MHz transmitter. It is powered by a 15000mAh lithium-ion battery pack, and an automatically orienting solar cell array. A second module, equipped with a 433MHz transmitter, is able to receive the sent data, and prints it to two OLED displays. Furthermore, it logs the data to a microSD card.
The M.A.R.S. utilises the Arduino Development Environment; the sensors use the I2C and SPI buses. This allows other sensors to be added to the station, should this be desired.
In conclusion M.A.R.S. is equipped with the most effective technologies from different areas; for example, it uses accurate sensors, 433MHz transmission, and is equipped with a solar tracker to increase the efficacy of the solar cells by over 40%.