Month: December 2017

Crew 184 Sol Summary Report  05 Dec 2017

MDRS Sol Summary Report for Sol 4

Summary Title:  Our first failure and major replan

Mission Status:  Today was a hectic day with three major failures our
team dealt with.
1.    Internet – Between 8:30am and 9:30am 800MB of bandwidth was
utilized. It is unknown what caused this but likely culprit was a
device being left on and doing a software update in the background.
Internet communication was lost at this time.  These reports are being
delivered by Shannon today.
2.    Water – During our morning fill of the loft tank the pump
was non-functional.  Possible causes were quickly narrowed down to
either a frozen pipe due to the below freezing temperatures or a
clogged filter. Our team immediately switched to using bottled water
which we keep as an emergency reserve while we troubleshot the issue.
At 1pm we called Mission Control for advice who recommended we connect
the pipe heating system and wait till midday, this resolved the issue
around 3pm and water was restored to the HAB
3.    Power – During our morning check of SOC it was noted that
the generator was not running, having failed sometime during the
night, and that SOC was at 3%.  We immediately instituted a shutdown
of MDRS powered equipment to preserve what little power we had and
investigated the generator.  It was noted that a significant oil leak
had developed from the oil cap, upon tightening the cap the leak
stopped and the generator was restarted.  When returning to the
science dome it was observed that SOC was hovering around 10% and did
not appear to be charging.  After consultation with Mission Control it
was discovered that the generator was in idle due to the power system
not requesting it to go to full delivered power given the fact that
the solar array system was charging the battiers (however slowly) .
In addition the SOC was likely incorrect due to it being a calculated
value and us confusing it due to going off scale.  We will assess SOC
tonight after a full day in the sun and decide forward plan.

Our morning was mostly consumed with maintenance and troubleshooting,
we quickly discovered that when receiving failures our level of
knowledge of the systems was exhausted in how to troubleshoot,
recommend future crew get access to and study manuals for MDRS
equipment prior to stay.

In the afternoon when we got our facilities in a stable configuratrion
four members of our team went on our first Matryoshka EVA. We were
able to go to the Kissing Camel ridge and collect two samples, however
we were unable to go to the other site in URC South due to delays in
getting out since we had to fix our non-nominal systems.

The two sample we collected were to highlight interesting
geomorphological features to be used in outreach activities back in
Oxford. The strike and dip of the ridge component the first sample was
extracted from was also taken. The intention of sample collection and
strike and dip measurement is to determine whether satellite and
outcrop scale imagery data is reliable at predicting these.

Sol Activity Summary:
1.    Troubleshooting and EVA as discussed above
2.    Exercise
3.    Assembling of exercise equipment using martian dirt
(medicine ball complete!)
4.    HAB Cleaning
5.    Solar observation

Look Ahead Plan:
With internet down we are unable to contact our scheduling team.  We
will receive the schedule in the morning when internet bandwidth
restarts and go over it as a team to plan our day.

Anomalies in work:
1.    Yamaha 250 ATV #3 wheel deemed non-recoverable.  We have
parked it off to the side for mission support.  Photos of damage
attached.

Weather: Very cold!  It was below freezing for most of the day.

Crew Physical Status: All in good health.

EVA: Delayed due to non-nominal systems, so we are requesting the same
EVA from Sol 3 but just for site A (mound on URC South) to finish off
the sample collection. The plan and crew utilised will be the exact
same as today.

Reports to be file:
Greenhab
Operations
Astronomy
EVA Request
Journalist
Sol Summary

Support Requested:
Trash placed in the Rear Airlock for pickup.  Burnable trash on the
side with the box.  Non-burnable trash on the other side.

MDRS Daily Summary Report for Sol 3

Summary Title: First full up day of activities!

Mission Status: Today really felt like our first day on mars. It was our first full activity day as well as our first day on EVA! Surprisingly it was consensus among our crew that our first full day was actually the easiest day we’ve had so far! I think the excitement of going outside and our team getting into the swing of things has really made us more efficient.

The primary activity for the day was an EVA on all crew to familiarize ourselves with EVA procedures, suit functionality, and operation of the rovers. Many lessons were learned, and it was good that we got the kinks out on a EVA solely suited to it. This will allow our scientific EVAs to be successful later on, as well as ensure that we can safely perform EVAs at a farther distance from the habitat.

Our team is following a specific protocol for depress / repress operations modeled after ISS EVAs. Our team is doing a 25 minute prebreathe in the EVA Prep room to prevent decompression sickness, once complete we are doing a 5 minute depressurization in the actual airlock. During repress we are allocating 5 minutes for repressurization options, though we have the capability to do an ’emergency repress’ if needed at the risk of rupturing crew eardrums.

Below are the several lessons learned we had during EVA.

1. Peripheral vision is nearly non-existent when wearing the EVA helmets. This makes it difficult to travel together in an ATV convoy as it is impossible to turn around and check on the status of those behind you. We attempted to mitigate this by placing the radios in VOX and keeping in constant voice contact to maintain proper spacing, we also played ‘leapfrog’ with the ATV’s where the leader would stop after several minutes of driving to allow the two behind him to catch up and pass, ensuring no-one was left behind.
2. We had several communication failures during EVA due to earpieces falling out of ears. We addressed this via using medical tape to secure the earpieces in place.
3. We had to abort a prebreathe operation due to forgetting to bring supplies into the EVA Prep room. We instituted a supply check prior to closing the Prep Room door. If necessary to break EVA prebreathe protocol we do a 3 to 1 buy back, i.e. if you break prebreathe for 5 minutes, you add 15 minutes to prebreathe to compensate.
4. Several of our crew members are trained scuba divers. We found that it was difficult to hear other EVA crew while driving the ATV due to engine and wind noise, we instituted a series of hand signals to allow non-verbal communication which quickly and concisely allowed EVA crew status to be conveyed.
5. Do not wear high pony tails – recommend low braid. A high braid interferes with the way that your head can move within the EVA helmet and vision is confined to roughly a 45 degree angle down and lower.

During the high winds today we heard a bang as the outer airlock door was blown open. The inner airlock door held closed and thus we didn’t all die! We immediately closed the door to the EVA Prep room to form a second seal to the martian atmosphere. During tomorrows familiarization EVA we will enter the EVA Prep room, close the EVA Prep room door, and use that as a depressurization chamber. Immediately upon departure on tomorrows EVA we will repair the outer airlock door.

We also completed our first scientific objectives today, covered below.

Reduced Gravity CPR Experiment: When on Mars there is a possible complication when performing CPR. With your body weight reduced the typical CPR techniques are non functional due to reduced force on the recipient. Our team is practicing techniques under the supervision of our medical officer to allow force application in excess of body weight and measuring output using a springed scaled.

Communication Delay ‘Bricks’ Experiment: Our first two experiment runs of the brick experiment were performed. We started with a 0 time delay baseline, and increased to a 9 minute time delay with verbal information transfer (martian time delay). Our runs will continue to collect more data and determine the most efficient methods of information transfer.

We also completed some major maintenance tasks today

The Musk Observatory has been set up and put through it’s paces and is ready for operation.

Trailer Tank to Static Water Tank transfer operation – Crew completed the transfer this morning completely filling our static water tank. Heartfelt thanks to the Team supporting us for dropping the trailer tank and instructions on how to transfer the water. The MDRS Hab Manual was a roaring success in allowing us to complete this task!

Sol Activity Summary:

1. Tasks mentioned above
2. Exercise
3. Dirt dehydration
4. Science Dome organization and clean up
5. Repair of Roof Hatch hole
6. Our first shower! Heartily enjoying the new heater
7. Completion of reports (soon)

1. EVA Request
2. Sol Summary
3. Greenhab
4. Journalist
5. Operations
6. Astronomer
7. Inventory

WiFi range survey Radio check with all radios (all functional except for 1) Look Ahead Plan:

1. Matryoshka EVA #1

2. Communication ‘Lego Bricks’ experiment

3. Sleep Study / crew medical questionnaires

4. Musk Observatory Observation

5. Journalist interviews and filming

6. Medical status surveys with Crew Doctor throughout the day.

7. CPR Experiment

8. HAB Cleaning

9. Radio Range EVA – This activity is cancelled due to 1 EVA per day limit. It will be rescheduled for a future day. We will work with schedulers to ensure they understand this limit for the future.

Anomalies in work:

1. ATV wobbly wheel
2. Non Functional Power Strip (removed and replaced)
3. 3 Non Functional Radios (does not impact operations)
4. HAB paneling peeling off due to wind damag

Weather: Very mild weather. This was welcome after yesterday.

Crew Physical Status: All crew in good health.

EVA: 2 Familarization EVAs today

Support Requested:

1. ATV Fuel
2. Food Drop (not urgent)

.