Featured articles
A featured article ring (or Mars "eclipse") 
is awarded to articles that demonstrate exceptional clarity, detail or individuality. Articles in Marspedia can be nominated by anyone and then reviewed by Marspedia's administrative staff. Currently, there are no time restraints on the featured article, and just because the article has been nominated does not mean it will be featured! In time, this program will extend to "Featured Contributors" and "Featured Categories". See the front page for the current featured article.
Currently Featured Article
The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is a Mars analog research facility run by The Mars Society in the southern Utah desert — the second of the Society's analog stations and one of the longest-running Mars surface simulations in the world. Since its habitat was built in 2001, rotating crews have lived "in simulation" near Hanksville, wearing analog spacesuits for surface excursions and rationing water, power, and communications much as an early Mars settlement would.
The campus has grown into a cluster of connected modules — the two-story Hab, the GreenHab greenhouse, the Science Dome laboratory, the RAM engineering workshop, and the Musk Mars Desert Observatory. Each field season (roughly October–May) hosts crews of six or seven scientists, engineers, and students from around the world; by 2025 more than 300 crews had completed rotations, carrying out research in geology, biology, engineering, and human factors. Read more →
Previously Featured Articles
- August 30, 2017: Mars 2020
- April 14, 2015: Water
- November 20, 2011: Interplanetary Internet
- June 4, 2008: Foundation of an Autonomous Colony
- January 2, 2008: Greenhouse
- November 21, 2007: Mars Global Surveyor