Mission MarsBio-III
R. Valli Divya's entry for the 2026 AbSciCon Creative Writing Competition
Astrobiology looks for the faint chemical fingerprints of life that once was. The story we’re sharing today follows a scientist searching for those fingerprints on Mars, while searching for a bit of meaning for herself as well.
Today we’re delighted to share SEARCH FOR LIFE ON MARS-MISSION MARSBIO-III by R. Valli Divya.
This piece comes to us from the Creative Writing Competition held at the 2026 Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon), the flagship biennial gathering of the global astrobiology community, held this past year in Madison, Wisconsin. Blue Marble Space was proud to sponsor the competition, which invited scientists and storytellers to explore life in the universe through fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
You can learn more about the competition and see the full list of winners in our introductory post, and you can find every piece in this series as it’s published under our AbSciCon tag.
About the Author
R. Valli Divya is a PhD student of Earth Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, India. She studies minerals under high pressures and temperatures to simulate planetary interior conditions. She likes to read about astrobiology.
You can follow her in BlueSky: @vallidivya.bsky.social
SEARCH FOR LIFE ON MARS
MISSION MARSBIO-III
By R. Valli Divya
It’s time for Mission MarsBio-III. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Boom! The rocket speeds up through the Earth’s atmosphere. The spacecraft called the Andromeda is on top of the rocket. The rocket components separate one by one with the spacecraft successfully orbiting the earth. After circling the earth for two rounds, it comes in the exact position to launch for the shortest route to Mars. Sia is feeling emotional as the rocket launches. She is accompanied by her companion robot XOBO137 (shortly called Xo).
Five years before launch. Sia was depressed with her life. Low salary, unable to pay rents and broken relationships sucked all her energy. She had been like this for a long time. She was suffering from mental illness and was sitting in her doctor’s wait room for her turn of checkup. She noticed the newspaper. There was an advertisement to work with the Unity Space Agency as an astronaut. The eligibility requirements were quite odd – a female scientist with mental illness of some form for the upcoming mars mission. Sia had a PhD in Earth Sciences with specialization in mineralogy. She studied biosignatures from the clay minerals of early earth records. She was then working with a consultancy company on soil geochemistry for understanding carbon emissions and budgets of agricultural lands. Sia loved space and earth sciences since childhood. She always wished to be an astronaut. She just applied for it.
Two months later, she got a call from Unity Space Agency for an interview. She was faced by a board of interviewers who questioned every aspect of her life- from her childhood, her college, her work and most importantly her emotional struggles and anxiety problems. In a bid for future human space travel accessible and save for everyone, Unity Space Agency wanted someone with anxiety problems. They wanted to test how such a person can survive and what they undergo physically and emotionally in space. On the other hand, they wanted someone to collect the martian clay mineral samples by previous rovers and human missions and test for biosignatures in Mars. Mars has a permanent base camp where astronauts go and come regularly. This time they wanted to test the challenges faced by a mental illness person in martian environment and how efficiently they can test the samples in mars. These types of human tests will enable common specialised scientists and general public to go to Mars and there will not be any need to train pilots and engineers to do science in space and mars. The Unity Space Agency offered her huge sums of money for the job, enough for Sia to pay her rents and live off her life peacefully on earth, if at all the mission was successful. Sia was alone. She wanted to do something for humanity. She knows space travel is dangerous. She accepted the offer.
The spacecraft Andromeda is small, conical in space with spikes all around it. The spikes help to maintain 1g (earth’s gravity) inside the spacecraft. Andromeda consists of compartments – mission control room for steering the spacecraft, personal room where Sia will sleep, rest and eat, laboratory room where Sia will perform all the experiments assigned to her from the headquarters of Unity Space Agency. Her companion robot Xo is AI empowered and it’s the most advanced robot who will talk to you as if a human is there. It does feel sometimes to Sia that it has emotions and intelligence like a human. The whole mission is planned for one year with five months journey to Mars, one month on Mars (29.19 martian sols) and six months back to Earth. This mission had two main objectives. First to monitor Sia’s emotional behaviour throughout the trip. Second is to test the clay minerals for biosignatures and how efficiently laboratory experiments can be done in Mars.
She had five months to enter Mars orbit. The headquarters had already given her a timetable which she has to strictly follow. She was busy in the schedule. She had to regularly monitor herself every day and report it to the headquarters. It means more on how anxious she is feeling and any other thoughts. To her surprise, Sia felt more better in space compared to Earth. There were some days she felt anxiety taking over but luckily, she had Xo who turns into a doctor when needed. Xo does counselling work like a real doctor and together they work out for the better. She conducted some experiments on microgravity. She conducted experiments on growing different vegetables like tomato, beans, peas, radish, turnip and flowers like rose, tulip in microgravity. Though the vegetables were successful but the flowers were unsuccessful. They needed a lot of extra care which can’t be done in space conditions. She had to experiment with and develop new strains of bacteria which can survive in space but she has to be extra careful with the bacteria so they do not spill out of the laboratory. She should not contaminate Mars so after developing the strains and testing them she has to kill them. Apart from doing laboratory work and talking to Xo, Sia had her own space reading books, listening to music, watching movies. She can talk to her parents once a week from the spacecraft and the rest of the days she has to report to the headquarters. As Mars came closer, her anxiety periods increased but she was able to manage herself with tablets and Xo. Finally, the day came when the spacecraft has to successfully surround martian orbit and so it did. Most of the operations in the spacecraft are automatically controlled but some has to be manually steered in case of emergency. Over the next couple of days, Sia just watched in awe from the spacecraft at the red planet. This was the first time she had been travelling in space and first time to go to the red planet. She was excited after a long time in her life. She understood that life is precious after she went to space and was ashamed of herself that she wanted to end her life back in earth over stupid small reasons.
It’s time to enter Mars. Sia and Xo entered a smaller capsule Rosy from the orbiting spacecraft Andromeda. As Rosy went through martian atmosphere everything looked red for Sia. Rosy then opened a parachute and after some time, Rosy soft landed on Mars. For a moment Sia panicked to open the door. With Xo’s help, she finally opened the door and saw the landscape filled with boulders. She landed 3 kms away from the exact landing site which was supposed to be the Jezero crater. Previous mars missions have already built a habitable dome in Jezero crater. Sia and Xo wheeled through the landscape on a specially made rover for human travel called the TO124. They reached the dome by sunset. The habitable dome was meant for four persons at a time. With more experiments, Unity Space Agency plans to expand into a town like the McMurdo Station in Antarctica. The dome has a name too called the Mariam. Mariam was spacious with many compartments much bigger than the Andromeda spacecraft. She had her own personal room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a laboratory with advanced instrumentation, a farm to grow vegetables and control room of the Mariam. For the first night on Mars, Sia talked with the headquarters on updates and with her parents who were so proud of her. She was exhausted but she wore the spacesuit and went outside to see the night sky. She was struck by the meteor shower that night. Mars being closer to the asteroid belt has more meteor showers than Earth. She then went inside Mariam, took a bath and went straight to bed. She has lot of work to be completed in 28 sols.
Sol 1: Sia had to check if Mariam is functioning properly. She had to check the cables and antennas.
Sol 2: Sia planted the new drought resistant variety seeds she brought from Earth in the farm. They were specially designed for Mars environments and had to be tested.
Sol 3: Sia installed new antennas, new cables, added new cooling systems to the generators to keep them functioning till the next human mission to Mars.
Sol 4: Sia and Xo went outside to explore the Jezero crater for the first time after landing on mars. She saw sedimentary rocks with larger boulders all around the landscape. Previous missions had already mapped the geology of Jezero crater and so Sia already had the geological map with her with the coordinates. Her job was to collect the cores from a now non-functional rover. The last sand storm blocked the connection with the rover. She has to trace the rover from last contact.
Sol 5: Sia and Xo searched and searched. No luck.
Sol 6: No luck.
Sol 7: No luck.
Sol 8: Sia was very frustrated and started getting panic attacks. The headquarters told her to take one day off since being patience and calm of mind is very necessary to survive on Mars. With Xo’s counselling, Sia regained confidence and inner peace.
Sol 9: No luck
Sol 10: Sia was looking at some layers of rocks when she noticed something shiny on the other side of the rocks. She just went there to see what was causing the brilliant shine. She noticed it was part of the rover which she was searching. Xo then did a gravity analysis of the region to find out a gravity anomaly and together they did find the rover. It was buried in sand. Xo excavated it and they got hold of the cores collected by the rover.
Sol 11: Sia laid the hundreds of cores each approximately 30cms in length. Sia had to match the cores with the coordinates and send all the data back to the headquarters.
Sol 12: The cores were sedimentary containing deltaic-fluvial-lacustrine deposits. They were basically clay in composition which excited Sia the most. She unpacked the cores divided them into four parts for different analysis. One part for XRD, one part for XRF, one part for isotopic analysis and last part for taking it back to earth.
Sol 13: Sia had to complete the XRD in two days. XRD is an advanced hand-held device. Sia has to put the sample on a tray and focus the X-rays on the sample. XRD had a Molybdenum X-ray source like the CheMin of Curisoity rover but much more efficient and longer two-theta range. Analysis will be completed in seconds.
Sol 14: XRD analysis continued. Sia analysed the hundreds of samples with the help of AI powered databases which matches in seconds. Xo also helped in preparing the report in a matter of an hour. Sia got Fe-rich and Al-rich clays as found by earlier rovers and missions to Mars.
Sol 15: Headquarters gave Sia a break for a day. So Sia was writing her experiences in a notebook which she was planning to publish as a book once she reaches Earth.
Sol 16: Sia did all the XRF analysis for chemical elements. Like XRD, XRF was also a hand-held device.
Sol 17: Sia now used mass spectrometry which is the table top size to analyse carbon, sulphur, nitrogen isotopes especially the C-12 to C-13 ratios for biogenic origin. This was the most important part.
Sol 18: Analysis continued….
Sol 19: Analysis continued….
Sol 20: Analysis continued…. but this day was different. Sia saw something in the records. A positive biosignature. Sia was excited to report to the headquarters. But the headquarters needed more evidence before even letting this news out to the public. She was instructed to carefully pack the cores meant for Earth and bring it back before it can be reconfirmed.
Sol 21: Excited by her new findings, Sia and Xo went exploring the location where the samples showed positive signature to take a closer look at it. She has to travel one sol for the reason.
Sol 22: Travel to the location.
Sol 23: Sia found out the coordinates. She got surprised by what she saw. She saw rocks that resembled stromatolites. Immediately she drilled through the rocks and collected samples.
Sol 24: Returning to Mariam.
Sol 25: Sia analysed the samples and confirmed it made of calcium carbonate adding to her curiosity that they are ancient stromatolites.
Sol 26: The headquarters was happy to hear this but they still wanted confirmation after the samples are brought back to Earth and having done advanced analysis.
Sol 27: It’s time to leave Mars. Sia and Xo have spent 27 sols on Mars. Tomorrow is the launch to Andromeda. Sia slept peacefully that night.
Sol 28: Sia and Xo climbed abroad Rosy on a thruster placed two kms away from Mariam. The rocket launched and Sia got emotional again. Within hours, they were in Andromeda spacecraft orbiting Mars.
After two rounds of orbiting Mars, Andromeda sling past Mars towards Earth. Sia continued with her gravity and crop growing experiments but she couldn’t open the martian core samples till it is got to Earth. It was an order from headquarters. After another six months in space, Andromeda finally entered Earth’s atmosphere and splashed into the Pacific Ocean. Sia was safe and so were the samples. They were then distributed to top institutes for advanced analysis and Sia was right. It indeed was ancient stromatolite mounds now inactive without bacteria or algae. This showed microbial life once flourished once on Mars and perished at an early stage for reasons unknown. Scientists suspect it to radiation after loss of magnetic field. Sia created history. Sia became the first person with mental illness to successfully survive on Mars paving the way for next generation of scientists and common public. Sia became the first human to confirm the presence of ancient microbial life on Mars. Sia became a star after returning to Earth and published books of her journey.
Our thanks to the author for sharing this work with our community. This series continues in the coming weeks with more entries from the AbSciCon Creative Writing Competition: you can catch up on every piece so far under our AbSciCon tag.
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Thanks for joining us here with Planetary Perspectives, an editorial endeavor and science communication project from Blue Marble Space.
The subject of this story is intriguing: a person with mental health issues who becomes an astronaut and carries out a historic mission, discovering traces of ancient life on the Red Planet.
The role of AI fits well into today’s many discussions about the use of this technology, and effectively conveys the idea that asking questions of these software tools often gives the impression of intelligent and emotional behavior.
Perhaps the astronaut’s behavior could have been explored in greater depth; his psychology seems to magically readjust to normal behavior following the space mission, and this transition is described perhaps too quickly.
In any case, it’s a good story—it’s a quick read and is set in an unspecified future where science, rather than private commercial interests, seems to guide humanity’s first steps and its understanding of another world.