Sol Summary Report
Lindsay Rutter, Crew Commander 228
Sol: 4
Summary Title: Homeland of the Gods
Author’s name: Lindsay Rutter
Mission Status: Nominal
Sol Activity Summary: We started our day at 0700 enjoying pancakes made by Dave. During the morning, each crew member worked on their own projects. Jin and I would be embarking on the first science EVA of the mission and we both thoroughly prepared for it. I was sterilizing my regolith collection equipment and determining best practices for regolith collection, knowing the limitations of the spacesuit. Jin was refining his geographical collection procedure.
After a quick lunch, Jin and I began suiting up for our endeavor. Waiting giddily in the airlock, we
pumped ourselves up by playing Multi-Axis Trainer from the First Man soundtrack. As we approached my favorite road in the solar system (Cow Dung Road), we noticed a space vehicle, filled with space tourists. They stopped and took our pictures (as tourists do).
Jin and I successfully located our targeted destination, an inverted river channel called Jotunheim, located west of Galileo Road. I was able to collect five samples of dark red regolith from the Jotunheim geographical feature, while Jin collected important metadata, including sample collection time, altitude, and GPS coordinates (WGS84). In Norse mythology, Jotunheim is the “Homeland of the Gods”, and I concur with whoever coined this geographical structure. Taking in the entire landscape was breathtakingly subliminal.
Despite the successful sample collection, we identified several operational areas for improvement that we can incorporate when we return to Jotunheim for another science EVA, this time to collect endolith and non-endolith rocks. We experienced radio blackout with HABCOM several times and I experienced issues with VOX functionality on my radio, which eventually lost battery power. We will perform a viewshed analysis of the radio blackout and bring a spare radio in our follow-up EVA science mission.
In the evening, Inga harvested several herbs from the GreenHab, which we used as toppings to the vegetable soup Jin and I concocted. We ended our hard-worked day with some treats. Some of us dared to try a tangy orange mystery drink that is apparently popular here at MDRS and Jin made us some cookies.
Look Ahead Plan: Inga and Dave will perform EVA #4 tomorrow, exploring a less-explored area South-West of Robert’s Garden
Anomalies in work: We have significantly less water remaining in our static tank than expected and have confirmed a few minor leakages around the HAB, although these small leakages should not add to anything close to the loss of water we are observing. We will continue to investigate.
Weather: Sunny and hot with few clouds
Crew Physical Status: Healthy
EVA: EVA 3 to the Jotunheim (see EVA reports filed separately)
Reports to be filed: Journalist Report, EVA report, EVA request, Science Report, Crew photos, GreenHab report, Operation Report
Support Requested: None