EVA Report Sol 6
The EVA started at 10:50 AM today. Knowing that Brazilian TV was coming, I didn’t know for sure when they’d be here and ready to film us outside. They also needed to interview a few of the crewmembers on their projects before we could start. They wanted some footage of us on the Rover and ATVs, which we drove about 100 meters past the MDRS sign and back to the Hab area. I understand that I did not request the use of the rovers for today’s EVA, but I didn’t know they’d want footage of us on the rovers until this morning. Something to note was that the red ATV had some trouble starting compared to yesterday. I had to pump the throttle in order to get it going.
After parking the rovers, we collected our samples from Sample Location #1, the first location we sampled from on EVA #1. Once we got the sample, we walked into the small gully just north of the Hab. We took samples from 3 different locations along the hillside west of the hab. The “popcorn” like surface of the regolith can be rather unstable, as I found out the hard way (by falling). Nothing broke, I wasn’t injured, the helmet was intact, and the fan was still working, so luckily I survived! After photographing the area, we returned to the hab and recompressed by 12:45 PM.
In Hindsight, I’ll have to be more careful on even very shallow slopes, as it doesn’t take much too loose traction, even when wearing boots. To make sure no one else falls by making the same mistake, I’ll have to brief the crewmembers on how to lower their center of gravity (by squatting) when ascending or descending hills. I did not have time to brief the crew members on radio Comms voice procedures since we had the Brazilian TV crew here today. This will have to be done before tomorrow’s EVA.