Day: November 15, 2017

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Sol Summary – November 15th

MDRS Daily Summary Report for Sol 12.

Summary Title: Rescuing the ATV.

Mission Status: We developed many kinds of activities today: preparing meals, doing research, practicing exercises and rescuing the ATV.

Sol Activity Summary: Great part of our day was consumed with the rescue of the ATV in the in southeast of Skyline Ridge area. They depart at 12h20m and arrived at 15h30m. Julio and Camila worked in a proposal of guidelines to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) during their times aboard of the MDRS. All the crew members developed their specific research.

Look Ahead Plan: Tomorrow, will happen the EVA #9. Starting  11h and finishing 14h. Will participate in the EVA: Brandon (EVA planning, Navigation, Sample Collection), Julio (rock collection and photography) and Carmen (Sample Collection).

Anomalies in work: During the morning part of the crew moves to Skyline Ridge area to rescue the red ATV. Julio broke the simulation between 16h30m-17h30m (1 hour) for 1) to do photos of the full MDRS station from a little distance showing all of the buildings and 2) walking exercise as part of his research related with health and personal sustainability. Julio communicated the external activity to Brandon (EVA Lead).

Weather: 8o C, 46o F.

Crew Physical Status: Fine.

EVA: No EVA today.

 

Reports to be file:

Commanders Report

Daily Summary Report

Scientific Report

Operation Report

GreenHab Report

HSO Report

XSO Report

Crew-photos Crew 182 15Nov2017.

 

Support Requested: Nope.

Posted on

Operations Report – November 15th

Crew 182 Operations Report  15Nov2017

SOL: 12

Name of person filing report:  Carmen Atauconcha

Non-nominal systems:

WATER HEATER: Finally, we found the problem. The new water heater is not installed yet.

CHARGERS OF THE SUITS: Two of the chargers are working, but we moved them and now it is hard for us to connect them, again.

 

Generator—  It worked the whole night since 17:05pm of 14Nov2017 until 8:00 am of 15Nov2017.  Turn on at 16:30 pm 15Nov2017.  Operand.

Solar—

READING FROM 15 NOV 2017

 

TIME SOC READINGS
9:30 am 100%
10:30 am 100%
11:30 am 100%
12:30 pm 100%
13:30 pm 100%
14:35 pm 98%
15:30 pm 90/%
16:00 pm 85%
16:30 pm 80%
17:30 pm 100%

 

Diesel – 50 %

Propane – 49 psi

Gasoline (5 Gallon containers for ATV) –  2 ½ gallons.

Water (trailer) –  0 gallons

Water (static) – 350  gallons

Trailer to Static Pump used –   No

Water (loft) – Static to Loft Pump used –  yes

Water Meter:  62 gallons

Toilet tank emptied:  yes

ATV’s Used: Yes

Oil Checked:  No

Atv # Fuel Used Gals:  1  gallons

Tires Status: Perfect

# Hours the ATVs were Used today: 2 ½  hours

Deimos used:  Si

Hours: 2 ½

Beginning charge:  – 14:20

Ending charge:  –

Currently charging: Yes
HabCar used? No

Notes and Comments:

We love the new ATV’s and Rovers. Thanks¡

Summary of Hab Operations:
In the morning, when we waked up, we received four more  ATV’s. It is nice, of all them work. Also today, we went to recover the ATV left yesterday in the desert. Also, we needed to charge it, because it does not have battery. We connected it with another ATV, and it works.

Summary of GreenHab operations:

We are cleaning and organizing this area. It is a disaster, but we are working on it.

Summary of ScienceDome operations:

 

We are using the lamps of the Hab, for the laboratory.

Summary of health and safety issues:

Atila is better now.  All of us are better that yesterday.

Questions, concerns and requests to Mission Support:

We need gasoline for the ATV’S, please. URGENT

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Science Report – November 15th

Science Report
Camila Castillo
15 Novermber 2017

Hi, Kay!
Hope everything is ok on planet Earth! Peru is playing the football match that could lead us to the World Championship and I can’t really hide how excited I am!
Now, to the important stuff, like the science!
Things in the lab are well. I have confirmed that I can work in a sterilized place and there is no danger whenever I am trying to do my bacteria cultivation, so, thanks to the arrivement of the broth (Thanks, Shannon!) I could start doing some essays on the soil and plants we collected on the vegetative area. My goal would be to have an initial characterization of the microbes living here. I found that interesting.
I have some freaky results I would have to analize later at planet Earth refering to my plants growing in dishwater. I find it surprising that one of the highest concentrations of soapy water could actually be an enviroment for some plants to grow. How are this plants different from the normal plants? Could we use this kind of dilutions to recycle water at Martian habitats? It could be interesting for the future to analize this. I just started that as some side project and now I am asking myself some questions. This is really strange.
As for other projects, my main project will have to wait for a bit more. It seems that the strain I brought has been contaminated. That’s my own mistake, though. Streptomyces can be a pain to work with. So I will have to go back to Peru with some soil to analyze at my lab. I already talked with Shannon about this possibility.
Two crewmembers were working with plants and we noticed how the soil, that has the properties of clay (I could make a cat with that), might be restricting the plant to grow as it dries. We will have to somehow adress this problem whenever we work with the same soil in the future. As for now, I have tried some solutions for this problem.
Geology testings on the soil samples continue to be done at the lab. And we are trying to do the same characterization for the plant soil samples we have.
I will be attaching some photos today.
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Executive Officer Report – November 15th

Sol 12- 15/11/2017

Executive Officer Atila Meszaros

Hi, Kay! Atila in here again, reporting the events of Sol 12.

Today we were EVA-free, however as you should know by now, we had to rescue the poor and lonely red ATV from the darkness of Mars. The rescue party was Brandon, Carmen, Shannon and I. We succeed in our mission without any causalities and we got back home absolutely safe.

I’m working on a map of the Hab that points the fire alarms, CO monitors and fire extinguisher. I’ll let you know how that worked.

I think that’s pretty much all. If you need anything else just let us know.

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EVA Report – November 15th

Note before reading that nobody was hurt, and no property was damaged. The red ATV was successfully recovered and returned to the Hab. We had to go out of Sim since Shannon needed to come to help rescue the red ATV. Now on with the report…

EVA #8 Report (Operation Rescue Rover)

The sole purpose of our EVA today was to bring back the red ATV to the hab, whether that meant driving it back under its own power, or towing it back. We equipped ourselves with jumper cables, wrenches, pliers, and any other tools we needed for repairs.

We left the Hab at approximately 12:15 PM. In our party was Shannon, Carmen, Atila, and I. Shannon and Carmen manned Deimos. Atila and I piloted two of the blue ATVs. We kept within following distance of each other, passing Tank Wash, White, Yellow, & Green Moon without incident. Passing Sagan St, we arrived at the red ATV at approximately 12:50 PM.

Once we arrived, Shannon attempted to start for good measure. As expected, it wouldn’t go. So, as we concluded yesterday, the battery was most likely drained due to attempting to start it multiple times. So we decided that we’d need to jumpstart the red ATV. We got it running at about 1:05 PM.

We connected the jumper cables without incident, attempted to start the red ATV, and success! It worked like a charm and started right up. We had Carmen ride the red ATV with everyone else in their same vehicles.

Our return trip proceeded without incident. We returned to the Hab at 2:20 PM, refilled the gasoline on the ATVs, and plugged in Deimos.

Surprisingly, after going all that way, Deimos lost only 6% charge, according to Shannon. I did observe yesterday that Deimos was set to High instead of Medium, when I took control of it. I was leading in the red ATV that day, and at times, would go a little bit ahead and wait for Deimos. This may have compelled him to use the High setting to keep up with my ATV. In future EVAs involving an ATV and Rover, I’ll make sure that we caravan together, so as not to put pressure on the Rover driver to keep up. My observations yesterday about Deimos still gives us an upper limit for its High setting. I’d estimate that the High setting drains the battery about 15 times more quickly. This is a good reason why crew members using the ATVs should match the speed of the rovers, and stay within visual contact. Preferably, the slowest vehicle should lead; in order prevent the above from happening, along with other potential safety issues that can occur when crews become separated.

There was no additional EVA today, since the rescue operation took up much of our time for the day. This is all I have to report. Have a nice night mission support!

Brandon Ferguson

EVA Officer

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Commander Report November 15th

commander-report Crew 182 15Nov2017

5h40m – Awake. As all crew accepted, We suspended the simulation to go to Hanksville to receive 4 brand new ATVs.

6h23m – Today morning I and Brandon woke up early to start a exploration around the MDRS area and collect rock samples and then be contacted by the MDRS vehicle and Shannon’s Vehicle to We, together, go to Hanksville.

8h – Arrival in Hanksville and receipt of the 4 ATVS carried in a truck. Shannon come back driving her car; Atila, Brandon, Camila and Carmen returned, bringing back the 4 ATVs, each one driving a specific ATV. I waited for fill the water tank in the MDRS vehicle. We arrived all together in safety in MDRS.

10h – I and Brandon visited a plateau in west direction from MDRS. We walked around 3 miles (total) and returned to MDRS.

10h45m – Brunch.

11h – Brandon, Atila and Camila did the EVA to Write Moon region. When they were returning, the Atila’s EVA got out of gas.

11h45m – I just cleaned the dishes, organized the dinner table and take out the garbage.

13h13m – I’m preparing my reports and writings.

13h45m – I fixed the window of the airlock chamber, the inner border of the front door and the membrane door of the airlock room.

14h30m – I burned garbage and clean up the lower deck.

14h50m – Camila and Brandon returned to the MDRS and communicated to the crew and Shannon about the EVA technical difficulties.

15h30m – Brandon, Shannon and I (Julio) walked 1 hour or 2 miles going to help Atila in the ATV without gasoline. When We tried to start the engine, its presented some technical problem. We arrived back at 17h30m.

18h – Our dinner was pleasant. At total I walked around 18 km or 11 miles as yesterday and burned more than 1100 calories.

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