Author: jburk

Posted on

Sol Summary – March 2nd

Crew 263 Sol Summary 02-03-2022

Sol: 9

Summary Title: Mid mission

Author’s name: Cerise Cuny

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary: This morning, the first shower of the sim was taken. Léa only used 1.8 gal of water, which is a very good score compared to normal, non-Martian showers. We will try to all be as economical as her for our own first shower. The EVA was breathtaking. We went to the south to Kissing Camel. I found the landscape of Robert’s Rock Garden absolutely mesmerizing, and it was nice seeing a very different landscape from the surroundings of the Hab.

At lunch, we had debates about the French educational system. This debate has been recurrent during the mission preparation and some of us are getting tired of the same arguments being used again and again. We decided not to talk about it anymore.

In the afternoon, we did some ultrasound image acquisitions for the CNES, and two of us had to go through a very exhausting human factor experiment – one of the tasks is particularly long and tiresome. Marine will try doing some cheese naan for this evening’s dinner, following Clément and Crew 240 recipe. They also gave us a recipe for homemade hamburgers – I can’t wait to try them. Speaking of food, we did a food inventory and compared it to the food inventory we did at the beginning of the mission.

We ate more carbs per person than the serving sizes on the boxes, but I believe we need the energy to do sports and EVAs. We only eat enough food not to be hungry, thus I wouldn’t be comfortable reducing the food servings. We already talked about reducing portions but its provoked anxiety among the crew members.

Anomalies in work: None.

Weather: Clear sky, warm.

Crew Physical Status: Good.

EVA: EVA 13, in the morning, went very well.

Reports to be filed: Sol Summary, EVA Request (n°14), EVA Report (n°13), Operations Report, Journalist Report, HSO Report.

Support Requested: Food Supplies: We won’t have enough cereals and oat for the third week. We also might need a little bit more flour. Wi-Fi: Our Astronomer has an issue with the Astronomy Wi-Fi. The laptop does connect to the Wi-Fi but displays ‘No Internet’.

Posted on

Operations Report – March 2nd

Crew 263 Operations Report 02-03-2022

SOL: 9

Name of person filing report: Mathéo Fouchet

Non-nominal systems: NA

Notes on non-nominal systems: NA

ROVERS

Spirit rover used: No

Hours: 157.2

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 100%

Currently charging: Yes

Opportunity rover used: Yes

Hours: 85.1

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 94%

Currently charging: Yes

Curiosity rover used: Yes

Hours: 169.1

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 87%

Currently charging: Yes

Perseverance rover used: No

Hours: 228.8

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 100%

Currently charging: Yes

General notes and comments: NA

Summary of Hab operations:

WATER USE: 17 gallons

Water (static tank): 361 gallons

Water (loft tank): 38 gallons

Water Meter: 01562097 units

Static to Loft Pump used: Yes

Static tank pipe heater: On

Static tank heater: On

Toilet tank emptied: No and it smells better because we emptied it yesterday

Summary of internet: NA

Summary of suits and radios: Suit #10 has not been used today and was charging all day, but its battery voltage is currently at 9.6V. I was wondering if it would be possible to charge it “manually” or to replace the battery using the spare ones in the deck near the front airlock. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Summary of GreenHab operations: NA

Summary of ScienceDome operations:

Dual split: Off

SOC: 97% at 6:00pm

Summary of RAM operations: Broom to sweep the RAM

Summary of any observatory issues: NA

Summary of health and safety issues: See HSO Report

Questions, concerns and requests to Mission Support: NA

Posted on

Journalist Report – March 2nd

Sol 9 – A Hollywoodian movie

Author: Nicolas Wattelle

We are now at a point where the end of our mission is as far as its beginning. It is a strange feeling; this is one of the first times where we concretely think about the “end” of our more than a one-year-long project. But be reassured, it does mean that we do not keep up the good work!

Valentine is a clever strategist. Our HSO, for Health and Security Officer, takes care of us every day with sports sessions, proposing sophrology exercises, keeping an eye on our personal physiological data… She is like the guardian angel of each of us here, and it is great to have her by our side. But this morning, she organised an exercise of rescuing an injured astronaut, but in order to provide great data to analyse, she developed a scenario, Hollywood-worthy.

All began during yesterday’s eve, where she separately took each member of the crew to explain their role in testing a rescue protocol. She told everyone, except Cerise and Léa, that Elena would simulate a fall and an injury, and everyone one would have to abide by the protocol. The aim was to measure different parameters such as efficiency, time to secure the victim, and physiological data from Martianauts living the situation in EVA.

But in reality, she told the true scenario to Léa (who had to stay in the Hab during the EVA) and Cerise (who was Mathéo’s buddy during the EVA): Valentine herself, was meant to simulate being the victim before Elena did. Like this, the situation was more likely unforeseen for most of us and would be more realistic, while keeping the situation under control if something went wrong. In this case, Léa would have been able to inform Marine (today’s Habcom) and same with Cerise and Mathéo. It was very clever.

Everything went as planned, and after the protocol was applied, Valentine revealed the truth to the Marine, Elena, and Matheo who couldn’t be sure of what had really happened (even if Elena seemed to have understood quickly…). And we are now waiting for the data to be processed. This was a very exciting morning, and we had a great time talking about it at lunch!

For the work that has been done inside the station today, we made our second session of ultrasound with the Sonoscanner device and CNES protocol. Since last week, we received some adjustments from researchers, and it was useful. I think everyone improved their “image capture skills”, finding on average one organ more than last time.

On this subject, Elena is really impressive for an engineering student, she made twice a perfect shot! She may begin a conversion… The whole crew seems to appreciate this experiment and is really involved in giving their feedback and feelings about the protocol. This is a pleasure working in these conditions!

Posted on

Supplemental Operations Report – March 2nd

Supplemental Operations Report 2 Mar 2022

Name of person filing report: Shannon Rupert

Reason for Report: Routine

Non-nominal systems: Nothing to report

Action taken for non-nominal systems: n/a

Generator: Still being manually run at night. Approximate hours 9 pm to 7 am.

ScienceDome Dual Split: Off

Solar—Charge controllers off at night.

Solar— SOC is nominal. Nice to be able to see what’s going on again.

Notes on power system: We are once again back where we were at the beginning of the season. Both the generator and the solar system are nominal. Autostart is not working.

Propane Reading, station tank – 70 %

Propane Reading, director tank— 60 %

Propane Reading, intern tank— 54 %

Propane Reading, generator— 41 %

Ethanol Free Gasoline – not known gallons. There are four gas cans together. Three of them have old gas with ethanol and one doesn’t, but I don’t know which one that is.

Water (Outpost tank) – 100 gallons

Sojourner rover used: No

Hours: 161.6

Beginning charge: 100

Ending charge: 100

Currently charging: Yes
Notes on rovers: Nothing to report

ATV’s Used: (Honda, 350.1, 350.2, 300): Honda, 350 (whichever one is working)

Reason for use: making sure they are in operating order

Oil Added? No.

ATV Fuel Used: 0 gallons

# Hours the ATVs were Used: 0.5 hours

Notes on ATVs: Both started quickly and ran well.

HabCar used and why, where? no

CrewCar used and why, where? no

Luna used and why, where? Yes, to town for package pickup

Campus-wide inspection, if action is taken, what and why? Nothing to report

General notes and comments: Nothing to report

Summary of general operations: Nothing to report

Summary of internet: The Hab account is still online. The technician who is doing the upgrade still does not know when he will be here. I installed Starlink today but need more information about our account before making it operational.

Summary of suits and radios: Nothing to report

Summary of Hab operations: Added a humidifier to the upper deck. We purchased them for the trailers and found the added humidity in the air is very nice.

Summary of Outpost operations: The intern trailer’s greywater tank is broken. I have not looked at it yet.

Summary of GreenHab operations: Nothing to report

Summary of ScienceDome operations: Nothing to report

Summary of RAM operations: Added analog tire gauge to inventory. Currently, it is in the drawer with the water filter wrench, for no reason except that it fit.

Summary of any observatory issues: Waiting for a second part which is scheduled to arrive tomorrow.

Summary of health and safety issues: Nothing to report.

Posted on

Crew 263 Journalist Report Mar1st

category journalist-report]

Sol 8 – Time for geology!

Author: Nicolas Wattelle

I think we are now well settled in the MDRS routine. Our mission plan is driving our daily life, and it feels comfortable to rely on it as we are now accustomed to the latter. See, even the (firstly “annoying”) morning sport sessions are becoming a formality to us! Or almost, I may exaggerate…

We woke up like every morning at 6:45am, to be ready for the 7 am session. This week, we begin a study of our circadian cycle. We have here two “ArmBands” given by CNES. These devices allow us to determine, by wearing them during 48 hours, our “body” cycle. When we talk about circadian, we talk about all that is cyclical in our physiology. The energy expenditure, the intensity of activity, the body temperature… How is this cycle impacted by our life on Mars? We will see! Today, Valentine and Mathéo started to wear them just before working out, and so for the two coming days. We will all wear one at some point during this mission.

Then, we continued our morning routine, as everyday: breakfast (maybe there I can add that we have more and more deep conversations), preparation for the EVAs, then separation of the crew for their respective experiments. But today’s EVA was special and has been excitingly awaited: the first for the geological study thanks to the handheld LIBS (Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy) analyzer from SciAps, while using the Hololens to add an Artificial Intelligence support to help the working astronauts! For this one, Cerise, Marine, Elena and Léa went out, and headed to the “Stream Bed Connector” zone. To be honest, this one asked more logistic than the previous ones, it thus began a quarter late to be sure everything was fine before going out. And for a first try it went quite well and it is very promising for the later EVAs. During the EVA, the “laser gun” stopped functioning, but it was not a problem since the martionauts brought back 3 precisely chosen samples, and we were able to turn the device on again in the station. While I am writing these words, the two freshly new geologists of the crew are processing the data taken out of these samples with lots of interest! It is very nice to see this study begin!

I asked a new question to my teammates:

According to you, and at this point of our mission, how do you feel about living isolated?

This question divided the crew on the first thought. The first « team », made of Elena, Marine and I, first mentioned the comfort of leaving behind our daily mental load. I think this aspect is notable as to live a faithful simulation (and we do!) we have to leave some of our terrestrial workload behind. The others more quickly pointed out the fact that they sometimes miss their close ones, especially when we left them in a particular context in which we could be needing news from them. This is kind of weird as said Valentine, we live cut out from the world, but we live really close to each other: we live alone, but together.

PS: I cannot end this report without thanking our crew engineer Mathéo, who always takes advantage of his not too busy days (like today) to cook some bread and wonderfully delights for the whole crew. This thing is beginning to look like a tradition. We are all fans of the delicious smell in the Hab when we all gather to write our reports!

Posted on

Crew 262 EVA Report Mar 1st

Crew 263 EVA Report 03-01-2022

EVA # 11

Author: Nicolas WATTELLE

Purpose of EVA: Atmospheric Experiment maintenance (battery change, recovering data from PurpleAir)

The atmospheric experiment includes 5 devices: LOAC (Light Optical Aerosol Counter), an Electrical Field Mill, Purple Air (Aerosol Counter), Mega-Ares (Electrical Field Counter) and a Weather station. The aim of this experiment is to do testing of Martian-Atmospheric Study Equipment and their maintenance by human operators. Performing their maintenance and set-up while wearing spacesuits and following EVA protocols is the purpose of the experiment. All devices are located at the same place.

Batteries for the LOAC, MegaAres, the Electrical Field Mill and Purple Air needs to be changed daily. Hence, during this maintenance EVA, the 3 batteries (the Field Mill and MegaAres use the same battery) needed to be replaced.

Start time: 08:59

End time: 09:19

Narrative: EVA Participants entered the airlock at 08:57. Depressurization ended at 09:02.

The EVA participants arrived at the Atmospheric Experiment location at 09:06. The batteries of the LOAC and MegaAres were changed. Valentine was in charge of changing LOAC battery. Nicolas changed the MegaAres battery. In order to recover PurpleAir data (because we can not pull out the SD card during EVA), Mathéo took it off the mast and took it back to the station. The device will be put back on tomorrow.

At 09:11, the participants left the atmospheric experiment location.

At 09:15, the participants arrived at the Hab and entered Airlock.

09:20, pressurization over.

Destination: Atmospheric experience site (at intersection between Cow Dung Road and Entrance Road)

Coordinates (use UTM NAD27 CONUS): 518288 E, 4250586 N

Participants : Nicolas Wattelle (EVA Leader), Mathéo Fouchet, Valentine Bourgeois. HabCom was Marine Prunier.

Posted on

Crew 263 EVA Report Mar 1st

category eva-report]

Crew 263 EVA Report 01-03-2022

EVA # 12

Author: Marine Prunier

Purpose of EVA: Analysis of geology transition zones using a handheld LIBS (Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy) analyzer.

Start time: 10:14

End time: 11:46

Narrative: EVA Participants entered the airlock at 10:14. Depressurization ended at 10:19. EVA participants checked the rover batteries. The obtained information is:

Perseverance: Usage Duration – 228.1 Battery Charge – 100%

Spirit: Usage Duration – 157.2 Battery Charge – 100%

Opportunity: Usage Duration – 84.7 Battery Charge – 100%

Curiosity: Usage Duration – 168.7 Battery Charge – 100%

The EVA participants took Opportunity and Curiosity at 10:25 and drove on Entrance Road until Cow Dung Road. They drove on Cow Dung Road until Marble Ritual, after Marble Ritual the road was partially flooded on 1-2 meters, they stopped and parked the rovers along Cow Dung Road at 10:29. The EVA participant walked on Cow Dung Road until the junction with Stream Bed Connector (10:38).
They walked on Stream Bed Connector and reached two points of interest at 10:45 (the two points of interest were located 20 meters from each other, GPS location 519297 E 4251286 N). The EVA participants stayed about 35 minutes in this area, they proceeded on sketches and pictures. A software issue with the LIBS analyzer prevented the participants to use it on the field, therefore three samples of rocks have been taken for further analysis at the station.

At 11:19, the participants left the point of interest. At 11:39 they reached the rovers parked on Cow Dung Road. When starting the return to the station, a tourist car surprised the participants from behind, they waited for them to evacuate the road and returned safely to the Hab.

At 11:41, the participants arrived at the Hab:

Opportunity: Usage Duration – 84.8 Battery Charge – 99%

Curiosity: Usage Duration – 168.9 Battery Charge – 97%

They entered Airlock and at 11:46 the pressurization was over.

Destination: Zone F -final point of interest reached located on the Stream Bed Connector road at 12S 519297 E 4251286 N.

Participants: Marine Prunier (EVA leader), Léa Rouverand, Cerise Cuny, Elena Lopez-Contreras. HabCom was Valentine Bourgeois.

Road(s) and routes per MDRS Map: Entrance Road, Cow Dung Road, Stream Bed Connector Road.

Mode of travel: Rover on Entrance Road and Cow Dung Road till Marble ritual, foot on Cow Dung Road and on Stream Bed Connector.

Posted on

Crew 263 Sol Summary March 1st

Crew 263 Sol Summary Report 01-03-2022

Sol: 8

Summary Title: Deep conversations

Author’s name: Cerise Cuny

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary: Today was an intense day in terms of social interactions. At breakfast, we had a long conversation about Police violence and the 2015 terrorist attacks in France and Spain. We were stricken by the fact that even 7 years later the feelings of horror, pain and sorrow did not leave us at all. I mention this because it was quite a deep conversation and I felt like it strengthened our relationships: there is a unique bond between people sharing a common traumatise. The morning EVAs went well. Even if it wasn’t the reason for the EVA, it was nice for some of us to go farther than the atmospheric experiment, for the first time. The landscape stroke me as absolutely beautiful. We met some tourists that did a dangerous trick on us while we were driving the rovers. We were quite upset, but nothing happened, no one was injured. We always have a buddy watching the other during rover maneuvers but it might be useful to have side mirrors on the rovers.

At lunch, we talked about the Covid pandemic, and how it has impacted our lives for 2 years. I feel like our conversations are getting deeper as time goes. I wonder if it is an effect of us getting closer or the absence of exterior stimuli. The afternoon went smoothly, working on experiments, writing reports for Mission Support and researchers. We had some heated debates in the afternoon but no feelings got hurt.

Anomalies in work: None.

Weather: Clear sky.

Crew Physical Status: Good.

EVA: 2 EVAs (n°10,11). Both went well, no issue to report.

Reports to be filed: Sol Summary, 2 EVA Requests (n°12,13), 2 EVA Reports (n°10,11), Operations Report, Journalist Report, HSO Report.

Support Requested: No support requested.

Copyright © The Mars Society. All rights reserved. | Main Site