Saudi Analogs · NASA Space Apps 2026

Explore Earth's planetary analogues in Saudi Arabia.

Craters, lava tubes, volcanic fields, dunes, sinkholes and salt flats that resemble the Moon and Mars, each backed by published evidence and matched to the problems past missions actually hit.

Find a test siteWalk a site in 3DPlan a test

Find a test site

Tell us what you need to test. We point you to the Saudi site.

Pick where your mission is going, the terrain you need and what you are testing. Results are ranked by how many of your needs a site meets, then by the strength of its published evidence.

1 · Mission destination
2 · Terrain you need
3 · What you are testing

Virtual field visit

Walk the terrain, then see it as the Moon or Mars.

Pick a site, switch the surface between Earth, Moon and Mars, and turn on a dust storm. Use Walk mode to stand at ground level.

Building terrain…
Rover routes · VR preview

Pick a route to see its length and slope. Turn on Compare and press Drive to ride the same route on Earth and on the Moon or Mars at once. On a VR headset browser with WebXR, an Enter VR button appears and puts you on the route at real scale. Full headset support with base-building tools is our next step. Slope ratings are illustrative until our rover mobility criterion is final.

Compare splits the view: the site on Earth beside the same ground as the Moon or Mars. Move the Sun to see how much ground falls into shadow; on the Moon the Sun skims 1.5° above the horizon, as at the south-pole base sites. Orbit: drag to rotate, scroll or pinch to zoom. Walk: W A S D or arrow keys, drag to look. Drive: ride along the selected rover route. On the public site each terrain is built from real SRTM elevation with satellite imagery on top; elsewhere an illustrated model is shown.

The problem

Missions keep failing to the same environments.

Dust, cold, darkness and loose ground have ended or crippled missions for sixty years. Testing on Earth helps only if the test site reproduces the right combination of conditions.

Our question

Can we predict how space systems degrade under repeated environmental stress, and point to the Earth sites where those scenarios can be tested before launch?

Mission replay

Watch a mission fail. Then find where to test the fix.

Step through what happened, using figures NASA published at the time. Each replay ends with the Saudi site and season that reproduce the same stress.

Candidate analog sites

Saudi analog sites, backed by published evidence.

Every value below comes from a cited study. We do not calculate similarity percentages; each site shows its evidence grade, what was measured, and what was not proven. Candidates are sites our team proposed that still need published evidence.

Illustrated relief map · satellite imagery loads on the public site

Pin colour: blue Moon, red Mars · darker = stronger evidence (grade A → C) · dashed = candidate

Start here

What would you like to do?

→Find a test site

Choose the destination, terrain and test. Get ranked Saudi sites.

 →To scale

Al Wahbah beside a lunar south-pole crater, at the same scale.

 →3D tour

Real terrain seen as Earth, Moon or Mars, with rover routes and VR.

 →Mission replays

How dust, sand and rocks ended missions, and where to test the fix.

 →Test planning

Combine stresses into a test scenario and weigh site readiness.

 →About & sources

Method, limits, judging criteria, 20 references and the team.

To scale

Al Wahbah next to a lunar south-pole crater.

Shackleton, a candidate area for a permanent Moon base, is about ten times wider. Shape matters too: depth ÷ diameter tells you how steep the walls are.

Simplified profiles from published diameter and depth. Sources: LRO / LOLA for Shackleton; published surveys for Al Wahbah, to be checked against NASADEM.

Engineering readiness score

Weigh what matters for your mission.

Each criterion is scaled 0–100 and multiplied by its weight. Missing criteria are left out and the weights re-normalised, and coverage tells you how much of the score rests on real data. Scores below are sample values for the demo.

Test scenario planner

Choose a system and the stresses. Get a site and a season.

The planner combines two or more environmental factors and returns Saudi sites and months where they occur together, linked to the mission failure they would help prevent.

Space system
Environmental factors

Weather data alone cannot prove material resistance. A real test still needs samples and instruments on site. Seasons are indicative and still need NASA POWER records for each site.

How it works

From satellite pixels to a test plan.

STEP 1

Discover

Find under-documented craters, sinkholes and cavities from imagery and literature.

STEP 2

Measure

Diameter, depth and rim slope from NASADEM / SRTM elevation (≈30 m).

STEP 3

Compare

Match to lunar and Martian features using Moon Trek, Mars Trek, LRO Diviner and HiRISE.

STEP 4

Score

Weighted readiness across stability, mobility, thermal, light and shelter.

STEP 5

Recommend

Pair sites and seasons with a system and the failures it must survive.

NASADEM elevationSRTM 30 m DEMMODIS land surface temp.MERRA-2 dust aerosolNASA POWER solar & climateLRO Diviner lunar temp.Moon TrekMars TrekHiRISE imageryNASA GIBS VIIRS, MODIS LST, ASTER GDEM

Limits of the analog

What the desert cannot reproduce.

Being clear about differences makes the results credible.

Gravity

1 g on Earth, 0.17 g on the Moon, 0.38 g on Mars. Soil and wheel behaviour change with it.

Vacuum & atmosphere

No air on the Moon and 0.6 % of Earth's pressure on Mars. Heat moves very differently.

Radiation

Earth's magnetic field and air block most of what reaches lunar and Martian surfaces.

Scale

Al Wahbah is about 2 km wide. Shackleton crater at the lunar south pole is about 21 km.

Data resolution

SRTM's ≈30 m pixels can miss small pits and skylights. Higher-resolution sources will be cited separately.

Dust chemistry

Lunar regolith is sharp and electrostatically charged. Desert sand is rounded by wind.

Judging criteria

How ASTRIX answers each criterion.

01Impact

Points engineers to a real Saudi site and season for tests that could have helped Opportunity, InSight and Spirit.

See Mission replay 02Creativity

The same ground seen as Earth, Moon and Mars, side by side, with a movable Sun and a rover-route VR preview. Failures are linked to places, not only to terrain.

Try Compare 03Validity

20 cited studies with evidence grades, published measurements only, no invented similarity scores, and stated limits for every site.

See To scale 04Relevance

Answers the challenge directly: Saudi analogs for lunar south-pole base sites and for Mars, with low-angle polar lighting.

See the sites 05Presentation

One public link that runs in any browser and walks from problem to recommended test in under five minutes.

Back to home

References

Sources

Studies cited on this page, with links to the original publisher. NASA data on this page: GIBS imagery layers (VIIRS true colour, MODIS land surface temperature, ASTER GDEM relief) and SRTM elevation for the 3D terrain. NASA data for the next comparison step: Moon Trek, Mars Trek, Earthdata Search, NASA POWER, NASADEM / SRTM, LRO Diviner and HiRISE.

    Team ASTRIX

    Six students, six roles.

    01ResearcherSites, references, wall-stability criterion
    02Earth dataNASADEM measurements, GitHub repo
    03Map & dashboardInteractive map, readiness score
    04Moon & Mars dataCriteria, weights, lunar counterparts
    05Slides & mobility7-slide deck, rover mobility criterion
    06Story & submissionScript, English review, final submission