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For the 16th year running, a team of NASA-backed scientists are flying into the remote barrenlands of Nunavut’s Devon Island to mimic life in a Martian colony.

“[It] just takes you to Mars as soon as you go there,” project director Pascal Lee told a CBC camera crew during a weekend stopover in Iqaluit.

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This year, Mr. Lee’s crews are slated to lead the site’s two specially-equipped Humvees on mock overland expeditions. Travelling at the standard Martian rover speed of 5 km/h, the team will try to sift through every possible obstacle that would face a convoy of future Martian astronauts. “The idea is to develop good strategies for surface exploration with humans,” said Mr. Lee, speaking by satellite phone from Devon Island.

Also on the schedule is a field-test of a new incarnation of a NASA-designed robotic drill designed to probe just below the Martian surface. “While the surface of Mars is extremely unfavourable to life, the subsurface could present much better conditions,” he said.