MARS — NASA speakers who previously planned to conduct presentations at the upcoming Mars New Year festival will now do so remotely because of concerns about COVID-19 cases in Butler County and elsewhere, representatives from the Mars New Year Committee said.

“We're recognizing that we as the Mars New Year Committee are doing it as 'the COVID edition,'” said Mars Borough Mayor Gregg Hartung.

The event is scheduled in Mars Friday and Saturday.

“We had talked about this back in June as a possibility,” he said. “We're trying to accommodate all the possibilities to make this work. NASA has not pulled out. They're still in, just in a different way.”

NASA will still present remotely at the event on Friday and Saturday, which is being called the Mars Exploration Celebration to reflect the fact that the actual Mars New Year date, which takes place every two years, occurred earlier in 2021.

Interactive items and displays have already arrived in Mars for the festival, and will be manned by Mars New Year team ambassadors rather than in-person NASA personnel.

The NASA displays will be spread out into three tents, Hartung said (instead of the original five that were planned) and visitors will be able to interact directly with NASA representatives through Zoom-style conference calls.

Presentations on the main stage will alternate between in-person presentations from some of the other vendors and experts, such as Astrobotic, and virtual speakers from NASA.

The event will be livestreamed on the Mars Robotics Association Facebook and website. The association previously planned to livestream parts of the event, but Hartung said that component has expanded.

“We think it's actually pretty cool that people who might be concerned about coming will be able to watch online, and those who feel up to being part of a group outside can be part of it too,” Hartung said. “We're trying to be complementary with all the concerns and opportunities.”

Hartung said the Mars New Year Committee reached out to Butler Health System to make sure the event will be safe.

“They said that if we're taking all the necessary precautions, which we are making available to people, an outdoor event shouldn't be a problem,” he said. “They felt it was still a go because of being outdoors. We will provide masks and hand sanitizer to people, and encourage people to social distance as much as possible. We're not mandating it, but we're making it an option for people who might be concerned.”

An updated schedule and presenter list is in the works. As of press time, no other presenters have decided to go all-virtual.

“Everything's happening in person except for what NASA was presenting,” Hartung said.