This story is a sequel to Changeling Space Program

Twilight Sparkle's experimental interplanetary drive has malfunctioned, stranding Starlight Glimmer, Spitfire, Cherry Berry, a changeling and a dragon on a hostile planet in another universe. With limited food supplies, very little magic, no communications with home, and no way to leave the planet, they must survive until somepony rescues them.

Fortunately they crashed right next door to another creature with the exact same problem- a creature named Mark Watney.

They're going to science the buck out of everything- and do whatever it takes to survive Mars and get everybody home.

TVTropes page here! Thanks to GymQuirk for making it!

Commissioned art and fan works from the readers! Thanks, everybody!

This experiment in an updates-daily story was made possible by a generous grant from Canary in the Coal Mine and viewers like you.

(Sex tag for crude talk about sex, but no actual sex in the story.)

This is a fic based on the Time Loop Files, the format of which was first codified by Innortal on fanfiction.net.
Here's a brief guide.
The basic idea is, one character (the Anchor, usually the main character of a fictional setting) is looping back to the very first moments of their parent series every time either they die or some kind of time limit expires. They of course end up monumentally stir crazy given enough time.
Eventually others start to loop as well.
The reset is not always perfect. Sometimes a loop's history will be different to the "prime" loop, or canonical plot.
"Crossover" or "Fusion" loops also occur, randomly. These can involve the home loopers having a guest, or the anchor for one universe spending time in another, or replacements of one character by another.
Vacation Loops are where the Anchor (or others) decide/s "buck it" and lets off steam by doing whatever comes to mind. There's little or no attempt to maintain the original timeline.

In addition, and particularly more recently, it should be known that this story has a collaborative element to it - people may submit loop ideas or loops, ideally at the Spacebattles thread (a link to the current version of which is on the Trope page), and they may become included.

There's two page image options, thanks to Filraen - the current page image has been edited by the original creator from this work of theirs.. The other one is here:
http://hourglass-vectors.deviantart.com/art/MLP-Loops-466030169