Operations Report – December 31st

Crew 186 Operations Report 31DEC2017

SOL: 0

Name of person filing report: M. Grande

Non-nominal systems: None

Notes on non-nominal systems: Generator system limping along with a now-nominal routine.

Generator (hours run): 18.4h

Generator turned off, charging battery at 8:15am

Generator turned on at 10:30am

Generator turned off, charging battery at 2:30pm

Generator turned on at 5:30pm

Solar— SOC

@ 8:15am : 45%

@ 5:30pm : 61%

Diesel: 70%

Propane: 40%

Ethanol Free Gasoline (5 Gallon containers for ATV): 0.5 Gallons

Water (trailer): 20 Gallons

Water (static): 500 Gallons

Trailer to Static Pump used: No

Water (loft) – Static to Loft Pump used: Yes

Water Meter: 46 Gallons

Toilet tank emptied: No

ATVs Used: All of them

Oil Added? No

ATV Fuel Used: 0.25 Gallons

# Hours the ATVs were used today: 2:00 hours

Notes on ATVs: ATVs were nominal.

Deimos rover used: No

Hours: 96.4

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge:

Currently charging: No

Sojourner rover used: Assigned to director only.

Hours: Director discretional hours

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: Maybe

Spirit rover used: No

Hours: 6.7

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge:

Currently charging: No

Opportunity rover used: No

Hours: 4.3

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: No

Curiosity rover used: Yes

Hours: 3.75

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 100%

Currently charging: Yes

HabCar used and why, where? No

General notes and comments: Some clarification is needed about the water meter, but questions are below! It’s rather difficult to guess the gasoline used by the ATVs, though this will become easier when I have enough gasoline to fill them up and keep track from there. Also, I need to become better at checking the rover charges after use, so I apologize. Curiosity was plugged in without checking the ending charge, so when I went back out, it had already been charging for a little while. Otherwise, all is good, and we learned a lot from Shannon today in an effort to prevent dilution of knowledge during hand-off! The crew had a ton of fun toying around on the ATVs today for practice, becoming more comfortable with them. Then we were also able to drive around suited up, so this was a fun experience. Pretty surreal to walk around in the suits for the first time! What a first Mars walk today!

Summary of internet: All nominal

Summary of suits and radios: All nominal

Summary of Hab operations: All nominal

Summary of GreenHab operations: All nominal

Summary of ScienceDome operations: All nominal

Summary of RAM operations: Not Operational

Summary of health and safety issues: Crew is Healthy

Questions, concerns and requests to Mission Support:

* Kitchen: The right handle of the sink isn’t working.

* Water: Ops report asks for a “Water Meter” reading. Is that (A) the value I see under the black cap with the “potable” label on it, up in the loft? Or is it (B) the level of the water (Gallons) in the loft tank (which changes a lot throughout the day, especially if I refill it)?

* Heat: Water heater is disconnected and Shannon said that Curtis needs to come back and fix the system, including allowing heated water to come back up to the kitchen. Also, we really need a better, stronger heating system because the current one can barely manage to bring the water above freezing, instead of the preferred ability to actually make the water feel heated.

* Hab Car: Needs an oil change please, the Check Engine light is on again (among other issues).

* RAM: Considering using the little back-up generator to power the RAM for special operations. Since the generator routine has been working well for now, we think the back-up should be ok in this usage. Crew Engineer with help from others will look into moving it and the wiring necessary in the coming sols.

* GreenHab: Axle needed for wagon — Carrie(?) comes back on 3rd to address this.

* ATVs:

– Rearview mirrors are REALLY needed, pretty please! Absolutely impossible to see anything behind you while in spacesuits, and I consider this a safety and operational Must. I’m absolutely willing to install them, and I feel relatively cheap ones could be found quickly online (Amazon?), if Shannon could receive packages.

– We need more gasoline– very low at around 0.5 Gallons left. I will fill the ATVs up and then be able to really track our usage.

* Generator: We turned the Generator back on after a couple hours in the morning when it was clear the Solar SOC was dropping rapidly. However, in the afternoon when the Solar SOC was back up to 100%, we turned the generator back off. This was not the proper decision. In the future, during cloudy days we will leave the generator on and plugged in the entire day. This is considering that we have a second battery (not known until this evening) and also a generator master guy in town said that we can trickle charge it– i.e. charge the battery and have it connected to the generator at the same time.

Melanie Grande, Crew 186 Engineer

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