From Ship to Surface
The Expedition 9 Class has completed its three-month Utopia Center simulation and transferred to the Terra Nordica Mars Colony Center, marking the halfway point of the Svalbard training program. The 275 auronauts now begin the surface phase of their simulation, exchanging the interior routines of the spacecraft mock-up for the open Arctic terrain and colony procedures of the Mars Colony Center.
The Utopia Center phase tested the class under continuous spacecraft conditions: confinement, onboard role execution, emergency drills, and long-duration isolation. The transition to the colony center shifts the focus toward surface operations, habitat procedures, and environmental discipline in conditions as close to the Martian landscape as Svalbard can provide.
Picture of the Utopia Center facility. The class transitioned from the Utopia Center to the Terra Nordica Mars Colony Center on May 5, 2066.
"Three months in the Utopia Center changes how you think about the voyage over. By the end, the routines stop feeling like training and they just become life. Moving to the colony center now feels like arriving. Which I think is exactly the point."
The remaining three months will run the class through the full colony operational cycle, including habitat expansion drills, surface EVA procedures, logistics management, and the social dynamics of a growing settlement. The surrounding polar terrain, barren and isolated, stands in for the landscape the class will encounter when they arrive at Terra Nordica in just over a year.
Read more about the Svalbard Simulation Training Facility