&lt;p&gt;A sustained human presence on the Moon,&amp;nbsp;Mars, or other celestial bodies, will require&amp;nbsp;numerous disciplines to create technologies,&amp;nbsp;solve current known problems, and anticipate&amp;nbsp;new ones. One problem identified during the&amp;nbsp;Apollo missions is plume ejecta: the expulsion of&amp;nbsp;dust, regolith, or other loose material from&amp;nbsp;the force of launch or landing.&amp;nbsp; Rocket plume effects on Mars will be&amp;nbsp;different from those on the Moon. Because Mars has an atmosphere, ejected particles will&amp;nbsp;not travel as far, meaning that infrastructure&amp;nbsp;could be placed at a safe distance from the&amp;nbsp;launch pad and not receive blast effects.&amp;nbsp;However, the presence of an atmosphere will&amp;nbsp;cause the rocket exhaust to collimate, which&amp;nbsp;will probably produce much deeper craters&amp;nbsp;than the Apollo missions produced on the&amp;nbsp;Moon.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Plume ejecta was observed and&amp;nbsp;photographed during the recent landing of&amp;nbsp;the Mars rover, Curiosity. Even though the&amp;nbsp;sky crane landing system was designed to&amp;nbsp;minimize plume effects on the Mars surface,&amp;nbsp;areas of surface erosion were observed after&amp;nbsp;landing. Curiosity is the largest&amp;nbsp;vehicle that has landed on Mars. A human-sized&amp;nbsp;lander will be considerably larger, will&amp;nbsp;have more powerful rockets, and therefore,&amp;nbsp;will probably disturb the surface soil much&amp;nbsp;more. Deploying a landing pad or stabilizing&amp;nbsp;the soil can mitigate this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The goal of this project was to develop technology for building a landing pad through the following tasks:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;Demonstrate microwave sintering under Mars like conditions.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Investigate surface stabilization methods used for terrestrial applications and develop recommendations for a Mars landing pad based on these methods.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Develop a plan for implementing a microwave sintering system on a mobile rover.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;p&gt;The project was completed successfully, achieving the first ever sintering of a Mars simulant under Mars like conditions.&amp;nbsp; In addition, a design for a rover mounted sintering system was created.&amp;nbsp; Recommendations for initial soil measurements were developed based of off terrestrial experience.&lt;/p&gt;