title: "Site, travel and field constraints" description: The desert site as an engineering constraint: the command post, the clock, the spectrum, the road and the heat. part: The competition chapter: "2.8" toc_depth: 3 tags: - logistics - operations - field

Site, travel and field constraints

At URC the logistics are engineering constraints. The command post is a metal box with no view, so every antenna is outside and every display is read blind. The setup window is fifteen minutes, so the ground station is a deployable system rather than a packing problem. The radio spectrum is monitored and split into three sub-bands that can be assigned per mission. The site is at 1,309 m, reaches 37.8 °C, has no cell service and permits no testing at the competition location. Each of these becomes a mass item, a time budget or a test-plan constraint.

Who may be on site

The 2027 rulebook defers the attendance figures to the URC website, so the published numbers above are the working assumption S-URC27-RULES S-URC-LOGISTICS §3.b.iii.

The six-person limit is a console count, not a suggestion. Driver, science operator, arm operator, drone pilot, autonomy operator and mission commander fill it, and there is no seventh seat and no advisor to take one S-URC-LOGISTICS S-URC27-RULES §3.b.ii. Two further roster rules follow from it. A team member who leaves the command post to act as a runner cannot return to operate or analyse data for that mission, so the field crew of spotter, runners and astronaut has to be rostered separately. And the Astrobiology briefing is open only to members who stayed inside and never saw the site, so two people have to stay clean all week S-URC27-QA AQ8.

The command post

These stations will be metal trailer units (such as the back of a small moving truck provided by URC) or structures at the Mars Desert Research Station. Visibility of the course to the operators in the C2 station will be blocked. Basic power (120 V, 60 Hz), tables and chairs will be provided. S-URC27-RULES §3.d.i

The judges’ advice page is blunter about the station at the research station: “This is a metal structure and radio signals, including WiFi, will NOT go through the walls” S-URC-ADVICE. Both statements point the same way. The antenna is outside, the cable is long, and the operator sees only what the rover sends back.

That turns the ground station into a deployable system with a stopwatch on it: base station, GNSS base, antenna mast, two radio links, six operator positions, a drone control position and a power distribution board, carried in cases, erected by hand in the sun, and reversed in ten minutes S-URC27-RULES §1.a.ii.

Setup, teardown and the mission clock

The schedule arriving about a week before the field event and the order being drawn by lot are configuration requirements rather than inconveniences. A rover has to be mission-agnostic in its transport state, and any module swap has to finish inside the setup window S-URC27-QA CQ4.

Cable, mast and antenna

A 25 m run costs real decibels at 2.4 GHz and at 5 GHz, so the cable loss budget belongs in the link budget rather than after it. The 20 m exception exists to keep the team away from buried services at the structures, and it changes the cable length and the guy geometry rather than the mast S-URC27-RULES §2.c.iii.

The field environment

Drone wind is separate and advisory: the rules strongly suggest operating in 48 km/h wind with a top speed of at least 64 km/h, and the dummy mass requirement is never waived S-URC27-RULES §2.b.vi.

Spectrum: the invisible referee

The scope line is the 2027 change that catches designs: a link that was a rover link in 2026 is a rover, drone and astronaut link now, and an internal network that happens to run in the 900 MHz band is inside the same limit S-URC27-RULES §2.c.v. A team on the site is also within signal range of other teams on other sub-bands, so interference is expected rather than exceptional.

Where testing is allowed and what is not

• No testing at the site. The rules prohibit it before, during and after the competition S-URC27-RULES §3.d.iv.
• Permitted areas only. Testing is limited to places where off-road vehicles are permitted, such as the Factory Butte open area, or to town land. Undesignated public land is not allowed.
• No cell service. There is no telephone and no cell coverage at the site, so documentation, licence copies, spares lists and vendor contacts have to be carried offline S-URC-ADVICE S-URC-DESERT-SAFETY.
• No parts nearby. The nearest electronics source is a six-hour round trip, which makes a declared spares kit a requirement rather than a preference.
• Drone airspace. The site is Class G, below 120 m above ground, about five miles from an uncontrolled airport, and drones may not enter the national park S-URC27-RULES §2.b.xi.
• Drone paperwork. Remote ID, registration above 250 g, a TRUST certificate carried by every pilot and a spotter with continuous visual line of sight.

Travel, vehicles and lodging

Two details cost teams time at the wrong moment. Lodging blocks are released after the review results, so a cancellable fallback is worth holding. And components, including lithium batteries, have been seized in customs, so a US purchase backup belongs in the travel plan for any international team S-URC-LOGISTICS.

Health and safety

A written medical plan, a designated first-aid lead, an evacuation route and medication for the whole trip plus a margin are all part of the field kit. The absence of chemical response also sets the science posture: containment and a no-spill regime, because there is nothing to clean a spill with S-URC-DESERT-SAFETY S-URC26-SCIPLAN.

The season to the clock

What the site does not publish

• Command-post current capacity. The rules give 120 V at 60 Hz and no current limit, no circuit count and no guaranteed backup. A design load of about 10 A continuous with a battery buffer is a defensive reading, not a published figure.
• Whether the antenna limits cover the GNSS base. The 3 m and 5 m figures are written for the communications antenna. Planning to 3 m is the safe interpretation.
• The 2027 command-post details. Whether the station is a trailer or the station structure, and the power arrangement at each site, are not published for 2027; the 2026 text is the available description.
• The vehicle list revision date. The permitted-vehicle document is linked from the logistics page and carries no revision date.
• Lodging block timing. The release of room blocks after review results is 2026 practice, not a stated 2027 rule.
• Spectrum enforcement detail. The rules state that monitoring exists and do not say what follows a breach.
• Medical support at the site. Distance to care is published; whether a medic is present during missions is not.

Further reading

• Rules, limits and the field carries the clauses quoted here.
• Q&A rulings holds the antenna, cable and command-post answers in full.
• Deadlines turns the season table into dated milestones.
• Operator station and operations designs the ground station against these limits.
• Environment, dust, thermal and repair turns the desert into a test plan.