Planetary Simulant Database
Free Resource for Regolith Simulant Information
Mineralogy
No data available. Analyses indicate that these simulants contain significant amounts of hydrated clays and other alteration minerals, unlike the original MMS.
Bulk Chemistry
In the composition tables provided by The Martian Garden, we assume that by “silicates” they mean “SiO2“. We reproduce the tables as-is below.
| Component | MMS-1 | MMS-2 |
|---|---|---|
| Silicates | 49.40 | 44 |
| Aluminum Oxide | 17.1 | 13 |
| Iron III Oxide | 10.87 | 18 |
| Magnesium Oxide | 6.08 | 7 |
| Calcium carbonate | 10.45 | — |
| Calcium oxide | — | 8 |
| Sulfate | — | 6 |
| Perchlorate | — | <1 |
| Other | 6.1 | 4 |
Physical Properties
No data available
MMS-1/2 The Martian Garden
Simulant Name: MMS-1/2 Mojave Mars Simulant, Enhanced Mars Simulant
Availability: Available
Fidelity: Basic (MMS-1); Standard (MMS-2)
Developed By: The Martian Garden
Available From: https://www.themartiangarden.com
Publications: N/A
The Martian Garden is an education company that sells two Mars simulants, MMS-1 and MMS-2. They claim these are the same as the Mojave Mars Simulant produced by JPL. The Martian Garden company had no contact with the developers of the original MMS, but is mining material from the same general region. However, it appears that instead of sourcing the unaltered basalt that makes up MMS, the company is actually mining a highly altered cinder material that is much more red and contains abundant alteration minerals.
MMS-2, the Enhanced Mars Simulant, is spiked with “Iron III Oxide, Magnesium Oxide, Sulfates and Silicates” to make up for discrepancies in bulk chemistry between Mars and MMS-1. It is not clear whether the chemistry reported by the Martian Garden assumes that the source basalt is the same as MMS, and if so it is likely in error because of the change in source material.
Images
Photographs of the MMS-1 (left) and MMS-2 (right) simulants:
