Crew 206 – 02/27/2019
Sol 3
Author : Auzou Benjamin, Journalist
"Martian Excursion"
We are born to explore; since the dawn of humanity, humans never stopped
to explore new places. The first humans settled to all five continents,
the navigators of the XVth century sailed all seas, the astronauts of
the XXth century flew to space. Today was an exploration day on Mars !
The team of the EVA (Aurélien, Norbert, Gaspard and I) rode the rovers
to the Moons area. We walked about an hour on the muddy and slippery
slopes of the White and Grey Moons, following the steps of Norbert, our
scout of the day, under the wise supervision of the EVA leader Aurélien.
To avoid fatigue after lunch, I visited Norbert in the Green-Hab and
helped him taking care of radishes and carrots while some others were
taking a nap. Back in the Hab, Aurélien was waiting for us all to show
us his first night observation : Orion’s Nebula.
This afternoon we tested our own analog spacesuit in the MDRS for the
first time. This project was born in September 2017, when we first heard
about the MDRS and decided to apply to a rotation. We worked since that
moment on the conception and fabrication of this spacesuit. That’s why
we are happy to see this project concretise here. The prototype is far
from what we expected but we are focused on our goal to take some of us
in EVA with this suit and we will make all changes and adjustments
needed to reach it.
Today we had the first results of our strict water monitoring. And this
is a huge improvement compared to the monitoring of crew 189, the last
mission of ISAE-SUPAERO students. For Sol 2, the total consumption is
77.4 liters. The Green-Hab is the first source of consumption with 41%,
then come drinking water with 25%, the flushes with 13%, cooking water
and dishes water with 5% and 6%. The last 8% are unmeasured and come
from leaks or flushes volume uncertainties. In comparison, the average
unmeasured water for crew 189 was 37% of total consumption.
For more than a year, we worked together on the preparation of this
mission. We passed through happy and bad moments, funny talks and long
crisis meetings. But now we are here, on Mars, and we are like a family,
forged by our common passion for space exploration, our interventions
with young students and this mission. What we are achieving now is
exciting and fulfilling !