The Mars Gravity Biosatellite was a project initiated as a competition between universities in 2001 by the Mars Society. Among the participating universities were The University of Washington, and MIT, as well as others. Presentations were given to Bob Zubrin (Mars Society), and the award for best design was given to The University of Washington (UW). The UW team continued to develop the concept until the end of the school year (June 2002), after which funding became an issue. The team from UW contacted members of the team that presented from MIT, and the two universities agreed to continue development together. Later University of Queensland - Australia (UQ) joined the team as well. In late 2003, the UW team had all but dissolved, and the MIT/UQ team carried on the project.
The intent of the project was to build a spacecraft to study the effects of Mars-level gravity (~0.38g) on mammals. On 24 June 2009, a status report was released declaring the end of this program, due to lack of funding and shifting priorities at NASA. On 9 November 2009, Frank Stratford posted a brief message on the MarsDrive website stating that MarsDrive had taken ownership of the project and was seeking support. However, as of July 2010, there has been no further word on any continuing project activity, with the last activity being an article in March 2010 that requested funding and other assistance.
Read more about Mars Gravity Biosatellite: Program History and Overview, Science
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