UALR researchers receive grant for Mars study.(Innovation News Briefs)

A team of Arkansas researchers led by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has been awarded a $1.5 million NASA grant to develop a system to look for signs of life on Mars.

The Arkansas NASA Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research team, which includes scientists from UALR, Arkansas Tech University at Russellville and Harding University at Searcy, was among 27 NASA recommended for funding during a national competition.

The Arkansas team won for its proposal, "Mobile Surveying for Atmospheric and Near-Surface Gases of Biological Origin."

The grant, which requires campus matching funds, was part of the $19 million in grants NASA announced last week to colleges and universities nationwide to conduct research and technology development in areas of importance to NASA's mission.

Keith Hudson, director of UALR's Graduate Institute of Technology and the administrative principle investigator on the grant, said the team is developing a system to look for signs of life in a broad region around a landing site on Mars.

The proposed system could answer important science questions about the existence of life or its precursors in the solar system, atmospheric chemistry on Mars, and the presence and distribution of subsurface water on Mars.

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