Mission Summary – Crew 195

MDRS Crew 195 Mission Summary, Cdr. Dana Levin 25.5.18

The latest iteration of our Martian Medical Analogue Research Simulation course went extremely well. Our crew seemed to enjoy the simulations and clearly learned a lot about aerospace medicine, the Martian environment and operational procedures throughout the course. We continue to be grateful to the Mars Society for the opportunity to use this facility and all the resources it offers in our educational efforts. The major challenged we encounterd were difficulty with the power system which we were able to manage manually by switching to generator power when the charge dropped below a useful amount and the last minute notification of the news crew joining us for filming. The news crew was very much a surprise and we would have appreciated a heads up about their arrival so we could prepare and perhaps plan around them but in the end it turned out well and I believe their footage will portray the MDRS and our crew in a positive light.

As has been typical of our missions the daily EVA scenarios were handled safely and effectively and the emergency simulations were coupled with debriefs to ensure effective transfer of each learning objective. The feedback received from the crew both informally and through our own feedback process indicated a high level of enjoyment, respect for the facility, the course, and the challenges of a mission to Mars.

As we have now run the course several times, the didactic sessions and simulations have become much more standardized and efficient. The landscape and the difficulties of living in the habitat are well known to us so there were few surprises and our instructors understand how to manage the basic maintenance, reporting, and food supplies.

This was also the second year we’ve incorporated research activities into our educational plan. The crew was very receptive to this as were outside parties and we are looking forward to expanding this work in future missions. Our research is primarily focused on habitability, rapid iterative design, and feedback from task saturated personnel. We hope to present this research at future meetings and continue to solicit more projects that can benefit from our unique population of medical professionals. Our projects for this year included an app based audio/video/text capable feedback system, a medical data architecture simulation for deep space flight, and a scenario based rapid iterative design proof of concept that we hope to develop further in the future.

As always the realism of the EVA landscape is the most impressive feature of the MDRS site. The habitat facilities, EVA suits, and food supplies are well suited to the experience, however we have noticed a need for maintenance in both the habitat and space suits.

We were unable to utilize the greenhab or the RAM module as we had not built our simulation to incorporate them but these facilities were used informally by the crew and have given us ideas for future simulations which we hope to incorporate into future iterations of our course. Thank you for the continued opportunity to work with you on this project, we look forward to our continued collaboration.

Operations Report – May 26th

SOL: May 26, 2018

Name of person filing report: Shannon Rupert

Non-nominal systems: Power System

Notes on non-nominal systems: I believe I have gotten the 3rdcharge controller back online, but I won’t know for sure until tomorrow. In the meantime, SOC remained critical all day. I did forget to turn on the generator last night, but I will run it tonight and see where we are tomorrow.

Generator (hours run): Not run at all in 24 hours. Turned on this evening at 8 pm.

Solar—16-0 % SOC

Diesel – 55 %

Propane – 57 psi.

Ethanol Free Gasoline (5 Gallon containers for ATV) – 7 gallons There are three gas cans now as Ben purchased one during Crew 194. All ATVs were filled with gas this evening

Water (trailer) – 50 gallons.

Water (static) – 180 gallons

Trailer to Static Pump used – no

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

Water Meter: not recorded

Toilet tank emptied: no

ATV’s Used: Yes, just to do engineering checks (oh, and I did take the Hondo for a spin since it has been sitting for three weeks)

Oil Added? no

ATV Fuel Used: 0.5 Gals

# Hours the ATVs were Used today: 0.5 hr

Notes on ATVs: The 300 needs a new battery. I am hoping the URC crew can pick one up in GJ. The Hondo had been reported as non-functional but it was just that the kill switch was on. I turned it off and away we went. (I only thought to check the kill switch because this ain’t my first rodeo—I’ve done the same thing thinking it was dead when it really wasn’t.)

Deimos rover used: NO

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: no

Sojourner rover used: Yes

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: no

Spirit rover used: no

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: no

Opportunity rover used: no

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: yes

Curiosity rover used: No

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: yes

HabCar used and why, where? Yes, to move from Shannon’s house to the Hab to deliver water

General notes and comments: I have about 15 bags of trash in my truck that I will take to town and try to dispose of tomorrow.
Unfortunately the last two crews did not separate the trash so very little could be burned.

We gave tours to approximately three dozen folks over the past two days. I love positive outreach and sharing MDRS with people.

Kay and I installed about ½ of the new white cover to the tunnels today. (It was brutal so feel sorry for me!). The covering will be taken down after the film shoot and will be stored until fall, when we will put them back up for the field season.

Summary of internet: Nothing to report

Summary of suits and radios: Our Mission Support Spacesuit
Specialists from the NorCal Chapter have been here for the past two days solid working to repair and maintain the suits for the upcoming Crew 196. They cleaned and repaired all the packs, replaced all faceplates with new acrylic ones and all ten are in prime condition for the film shoot. I will need to deliver them to NorCal at the end of the season so they can upgrade them before next season. Their dedication to MDRS is deeply appreciated because this was a huge task for them to complete in a short time period and they dropped everything to come and contribute to our success. This kind of thing is what makes MDRS so amazing.

On the other hand, there appears to have been an inadvertent theft of all the radios by Crew 195, as they are all missing. I suspect the crew though they were theirs (as they were all new and pretty, so different from past years) and they took them with them. I will be contacting them to get them back. In the meantime, we only have six new ones for the URC so the loss is critical.

Summary of Hab operations: The toilet smells pretty bad and shouldn’t. I’ve flushed it twice now and will do it several more times over the next week. It will be closed to all during the URC.

Summary of GreenHab operations: All of the crops have been removed. I still need to clean the GreenHab to prepare for the plants we will be using for the film shoot. We have 50 producing plants that will be brought in on June 4th.

Summary of ScienceDome operations: Nothing to report.

Summary of RAM operations: All URC packages have been stored in the RAM. The NorCal team used it for their spacesuit work and they really enjoyed working in it. The power was supposed to be installed two weeks ago but it hasn’t. I will be working hard to get power there in the next week.

Summary of health and safety issues: Nothing to report

Questions, concerns and requests to Mission Support: Nothing at this time

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