While the Perseverance rover is widely recognized for its primary mission of searching for signs of past life on Mars, a lesser-known but equally important objective involves testing materials for future spacesuits. This quieter aspect of the mission may not receive as much attention, but its early findings are both surprising and significant. The harsh Martian environment—marked by intense radiation, temperature swings, and abrasive dust—can have unexpected effects on materials. The initial results suggest that even advanced fabrics may become brittle over time, raising important questions about the durability and safety of equipment intended for future human missions to the Red Planet.
Since Landing
Since its landing in 2021, NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has been doing more than collecting drill samples and studying the Red Planet’s geology. It is also quietly running a long-term experiment to test how potential spacesuit materials hold up under true Martian conditions. Five small material samples, each about the size of a postage stamp, are mounted on a calibration target attached to the rover’s SHERLOC scientific instrument. SHERLOC—short for Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals—is a spectrometer located on the rover’s robotic arm, designed to detect organic compounds and possible signs of past life using ultraviolet (UV) light and other techniques. The materials are exposed to Mars’s harsh environment around the clock, enduring intense UV radiation, extreme temperature changes, abrasive dust, and corrosive salts. This ongoing exposure provides a unique and realistic stress test—one that mirrors the challenges future astronauts and their gear will face when they eventually set foot on Mars.
Measurable aging
After four years on Mars, one thing is clear: the planet’s extreme environment is taking a noticeable toll on the spacesuit materials. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, has released initial findings showing that the material samples mounted on Perseverance have undergone measurable aging. Surprisingly, much of this deterioration happened early on—about half of the observed changes occurred within the first 200 days after landing. These results highlight just how harsh and unforgiving the Martian environment can be, underscoring the importance of continued testing to ensure future astronauts are equipped with materials that can withstand long-term exposure on the Red Planet. The most severely affected material was Vectran, a particularly cut-resistant fabric used, among other things, in the palms of spacesuit gloves. Other materials—including polycarbonate, Teflon, and so-called Ortho-Fabrics, which consist of multiple layers of Nomex, Gore-Tex, and Kevlar—are also already showing significant signs of wear.
Radiation is brutal
“The radiation up there is brutal,” says Joby Razzell Hollis, a materials scientist at the Natural History Museum in London, in a statement released by NASA. Hollis, who was part of the SHERLOC team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 2018 to 2021, played a key role in preparing the instrument for its mission to Mars. His comment underscores the harshness of the Martian environment and the importance of understanding how radiation and other extreme conditions affect materials that will be critical to future human exploration. The combination of constant UV radiation, corrosive perchlorates in Martian dust, and the lack of a magnetic shield causes even robust materials to age faster than expected. What takes years on Earth happens in months on Mars. For future manned Mars missions, the question of materials isn’t a minor detail—it’s extremely relevant to safety. If a spacesuit becomes brittle, microcracks can develop. Leaks, in the worst case, lead to heat loss, oxygen leakage, and thus life-threatening situations. The goal of the tests is therefore not only to select particularly resilient materials, but also to understand their aging processes under real-world conditions.
