Measurement of Martian Soil Electromagnetic Absorption Cross Section from 800 MHz to 6 GHz for future Mars Cellular Telecommunication systems

In recent years, the colonization of the planet Mars has increasingly become a topic of discussion because of the many scientific and technological issues that such a challenge demands. Among all, it must be considered that the Martian soil has chemical composition different from the Earth’s, so the atmosphere of Mars is also different. An open question is therefore to understand how suitable the Martian environment can be for the terrestrial TLC systems which are daily used, or whether it is necessary to study alternative stable systems on Mars, in particular of a different type from the conventional cellular systems installed on Earth. The electromagnetic fields used in mobile phone systems are subject to absorption and scattering by all the materials constituting the planet’s surface as well as by all man-made objects. In this paper an experimental evaluation of the absorption cross section of a reproduction of Martian soil is carried out considering both the chemical composition of the soil itself and the Martian environment.