Author: jburk

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Sol Summary – March 14th

Crew 293 Sol Summary Report 14-03-2024

Sol: 25

Summary Title: Cake and Confetti

Author’s name: Marie Delaroche, Crew Commander

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Last Photogrammetry EVA this morning! I left the Hab with the Crew Astronomer and GreenHab Officer, equipped only with some notes taken from a 2D map of Kissing Camel Ridge. We managed to find 11 of the 12 checkpoints; the terrain was much harder to read than previous locations: we spent more than an hour looking for the last two. As we were going to head back to the rovers, the Crew Astronomer’s suit started malfunctioning, sending very little air. The helmet was taken off for safety, and we made our way back to the Hab.

What I did not know, was that while I was out on EVA, the rest of the crew was preparing a surprise birthday party for me! I came back to an Upper Deck decorated with balloons and filled with a scent of cake. I am lucky to be a part of this group of thoughtful and amazing people!

In the afternoon, we started to feel the end of our rotation creep nearer and nearer… some experiments have been officially wrapped up, such as EchoFinder and AI4U. We swap opinions and feelings about what we look forward to on Earth, but also about what we are going to miss about living at MDRS: contributing to science, the intensity of our life here, and most importantly, being with each other.

Look Ahead Plan:

We aim to dismantle and retrieve all atmospheric instruments on Sol 26 (morning), and to break sim at 6 PM.

Anomalies in work: EVA Suits 6, 7 and 9

Weather: Cloudy, Low 1°C, High 12°C

Crew Physical Status: Nominal

EVA: Photogrammetry exploration EVA, Kissing Camel Ridge

Reports to be filed: Sol Summary, Journalist’s Report, GreenHab Report, Operations Report, Photos (6-8 pics), EVA Reports, EVA Request

Support Requested: NA

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Operations Report – March 18th

SOL: 1
Name of person filing report: Emily Doherty
Non-nominal systems:none
Notes on non-nominal systems:none
ROVERS
Spirit rover used:none
Hours: (before EVA)
Beginning charge: (Before EVA)
Ending charge: (On return from EVA, before recharging)
Currently charging:none
Opportunity rover used:none
Hours:none
Beginning charge:none
Ending charge:none
Currently charging:none
Curiosity rover used:none
Hours:none
Beginning charge:none
Ending charge:none
Currently charging:none
Perseverance rover used:none
Hours:none
Beginning charge:none
Ending charge:none
Currently charging: none
General notes on rovers: none
Summary of Hab operations: none
WATER USE: 71 gallons
Water (static tank): 425 gallons
Static tank pipe heater (on or off): On
Static tank heater (On or off) On
Toilet tank emptied: no
Summary of internet: N/A
Summary of suits and radios: All in working order.
Summary of GreenHab operations: watered plants accordingly. Put down shade around noon due to excessive heat from sunlight.
WATER USE: 20 gallons
Heater: On
Supplemental light: On
Harvest: 1g Parsley, 1g Chives. We also planted 1/2 packet of Chives.
Summary of ScienceDome operations: none
Dual split: Heat or AC, On or Off
Summary of RAM operations: (Tools used, work done): none
Summary of any observatory issues: None
Summary of health and safety issues: None
Questions, concerns and requests to Mission Support: None

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Journalist Report – March 18th

Crew 294 had an incredibly productive day on Mars. We began our day setting up several physiological sensors and planning our sample experiments (performed on the crew). This included measures like non-invasive brain imaging (i.e., Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) and Electroencephalogram (EEG)), galvanic skin response, heart rate, eye gaze, respiration, and body temperature. We tested the bluetooth and WiFi ranges of all our wireless devices. We also did some testing to see if our sensors would be feasible to use within the spacesuits. The afternoon allowed us some time to take some crew pictures in our space uniforms.

Looking forward to potentially testing some sensors in the field during EVAs tomorrow!

Emily Doherty

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Mission Plan – March 17th

Name of person filing report: Emily Doherty
Our Crew is as follows:
Commander: Leanne Hirshfield
Crew Engineer: Marta Čeko
HSO: James Crum
Journalist: Emily Doherty

Mission Plan: Crew 294 is comprised of two research professors, 1 post-doc, and 1 PhD student with expertise in the use of neurophysiological sensors to measure human social, cognitive, and affective states in ecologically valid settings. Crew 294 will be testing several neurophysiological sensors for the purpose of planning out future experimental studies. Specifically, the capabilities (ergonomics, bluetooth range, signal fidelity across distances) of several sensors will be tested within the Hab and during a few proposed EVAs, weather permitting.

We have two primary objectives:
To immerse ourselves within the simulation to better understand what a crew on Mars would experience in order to inform future study designs on similar populations in similar environments.
To test the feasibility of several neurophysiological sensors on ourselves (eye tracking, peripheral physiology, neuroimaging, audio, virtual reality) while at MDRS.
This mission will therefore provide our research team (crew 294) with greater knowledge about MDRS to design studies to propose to run in future visits.

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Journalist Report – March 13th

SOL 24: Mission objective: Save the station!

“The boy was beginning to understand that intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it’s all written there.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

This morning, we headed to the atmospheric instruments’ site to change the batteries and retrieve the data recorded during the past days. The drone, piloted from the inside of the Science Dome, was flying above us to take pictures! Then, Leo, Yves and I went to reach checkpoints chosen on Monday at Kissing Camel Ridge. Yesterday, we prepared our path with the 3D map, and we were very efficient! We found the first seven checkpoints in 30 minutes, but then, we were incapable of finding the eighth one for a long time… Finally, we found 11 out of 12 checkpoints placed on the site. We are proud of our performance, and Leo is very happy to have been able to test the experiment from this side, and to search for checkpoints as quickly as we could. We are impatient to see how Marie and Léa will manage their search with the 2D map, because at the end of the afternoon, they prepared their strategy for tomorrow’s EVA!

In the morning, the rest of the Crew continued working on different experiments or tasks, such as taking care of the GreenHab, performing solar observations for our Crew Astronomer, or trying to fix the EchoFinder equipment. The afternoon resumed the same way, after the EVA: Yves was handling photogrammetry data, Léa and Marie performed an EchoFinder session. I was working on the morning EVA’s pictures, sitting in the Hab, and Lise was also working on her computer next to me. Suddenly, at 16:08, an alarm rang on the AMI interface, so we stopped our activities. We were used to the procedure: we had to check a sensor in the Science Dome. Marie and Léa were already there, so they could check. Contrary to most of our alarms, which are just sensor anomalies, the risk was real this time! The alarm wasn’t a false alarm. One of the tunnels which connects different modules, near the Science Dome, had been damaged and caused a depressurization in a section of the station! After being reunited safely at the Lower Deck of the Hab, we organized ourselves to be efficient in applying the emergency EVA’s protocol: we had to go out in EVA suits to fix the station. Mathurin and I were equipped with our suits and worked on the tunnel from the outside of the station. In parallel, Léa was also equipped for the EVA, but on the inside of the station, in the tunnel. We communicated together by radio, and with Marie, who was the emergency HabCom, to be well coordinated during the operation. We even had a rover with us to maintain the tunnel while doing the necessary manipulations. We fixed the broken part of the tunnel, all in just one hour of EVA! At the end of the outing, we were happy to have fixed our home, and now we are all safe inside the station!

The day was very exhausting for the Crew, as we continued with the Coms window. Two EVAs in one Sol, that never happens ! We enjoyed the evening to rest, but also to coordinate the end of the mission, organize our last tasks and to think about the dismantlement of all our equipment and experiments!

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EVA Report – March 13th

Crew 293 EVA Report 13/03/2024

EVA # 17

Author: Mathurin FRANCK

Purpose of EVA: Emergency EVA

Start time: 4:35 am

End time: 5:50 pm

Narrative:

→ 4:08pm depressurization alarm, Yves radioed every module and alerted all Crew members of the depressurization. Pressure sensor checked in the Science Dome, depressurization warning confirmed by the interface.

→ All crew members accounted for and returned to the Hab, wearing oxygen masks (NB: FFP2 masks)

→ Commander took control of the operation and designated herself as HabCom. She also designated:

1 crewmember (Int1 : Léa ) tasked with helping with repairs from the inside of the tunnel
2 EVA crew members (Ex1 : Mathurin and Ex2 : Erin). Ex1 is EVA Leader.
First, two new picket fences were put in place. There was no metal wire in the RAM, we used zip ties to fix the picket fences to the cage. Then we removed the handbrake of the robotic rover to loosen the rope. We put the handbrake back and untied the rope. We then put back the tarp and secured it with zip ties.

Note that the zip ties we had are not very big, so we had to put a lot of them to be extra secure.

Objectif of the EVA: Fix Science Dome tunnel

Destination: Science Domes tunnel

Coordinates (use UTM WGS 84): 518000, 4251000

Participants: Mathurin, Erin, Léa

Road(s) and routes per MDRS Map: None

Mode of travel: Walking

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Sol Summary – March 13th

Crew 293 Sol Summary Report 13-03-2024

Sol: 24

Summary Title: Mission objective: Save the station

Author’s name: Marie Delaroche, Crew Commander

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

No Sol on Mars is uneventful, especially when one gets closer and closer to the end of their mission… This morning, the last exploration EVA supported by 3D mapping took place at Kissing Camel Ridge, involving the Crew Engineer, Crew Journalist and Crew Scientist. As the Journalist and Engineer were searching for checkpoints, suit n°5 stopped working. While the Crew tried troubleshooting on site, they could not find the source of the issue, and the EVA had to be continued out of sim for one of the EVA crew members. Once they were all safely back at the Hab, the Crew Engineer was able to figure out the source of the issue.

Meanwhile, after doing some more troubleshooting on the Echofinder tool, we have decided to continue running the experiment without the AI assistant, using only Augmented Reality. One session was performed this afternoon, the final one will take place on Sol 25.

With the help of Mission Support, we were also able to test our Anomaly Monitoring Interface, while simultaneously performing a meaningful fix outside the station. At 16:08, a programmed depressurization alarm resounded, prompting the crew to follow a realistic emergency EVA procedure. The objective was to repair the tunnel to the Science Dome; the designated crew was successful, the tunnel is now much safer to travel through. The interface test was also successful. We believe this tool could be a great addition for future simulations.

Look Ahead Plan:

The final exploration EVA for the Photogrammetry EVA is to take place on Sol 25. We aim to dismantle the atmospheric instruments on Sol 26, before breaking sim at 6 PM.

Anomalies in work: EVA Suits 7, 9

Weather: Partly cloudy; low 5°C, high 15°C

Crew Physical Status: Nominal

EVA: Exploration of Kissing Camel Ridge (Photogrammetry)

Reports to be filed: Sol Summary, Journalist’s Report, GreenHab Report, Operations Report, Photos (6-8 pics), EVA Reports, EVA Request, Astronomy Report

Support Requested:

We would like to thank Ben for his support on this afternoon’s EVA, and for giving us the opportunity to perform it.

The tools used for the emergency EVA have been placed in the RAM Airlock. We will cut the protruding ends of the zip ties in the Science Dome tunnel tomorrow.

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