Author: jburk

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Sol Summary – March 7th

Crew 206 March 7th 2019
Sol 11

Summary Title : Preparing for the Gale force winds

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : Waking up is becoming harder and harder for me, even if I sleep as much as before. Some of us sleep better and some of us sleep worse than usual, confinement and isolation have different effects on different people. We are nonetheless sticking to our strict daily routine : wake up at 07:00 am, sport and breakfast. The EVA’s purpose was to asses the damage on the weather station (that tipped over yesterday due to the winds) and the LOAC, and to dismantle the instruments to bring them back to the Hab. The weather cock on the station broke, but the sensor is still operationnal. The rest of the equipment is intact. For the rest of the EVA the team attached more tightly all the tarps that cover the tunnels.
Today is Cerise’s birthday, so the crew prepared a very nice lunch, and Cerise prepared a great chocolate cake. We had a very nice time. In the afternoon we were able to run a digital TELEOP session with the new computer station we received, so we are now collecting twice as much data, things all finaly looking good for TELEOP. The wind is sporadically blowing hard on the station, we hope that it won’t be too bad in the next few days.

Look ahead plan : Almost all our experiments are running fine, except the weather station. We will take advantage of the fact that the LOAC is inside to measure the quality of the air we breathe.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Sunny between 11 am and 12 am, Cloudy for the rest of the day

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : LOAC and weather station dismantling

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Report, EVA Request

Support Requested : Cooking whip and pressurized air can

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GreenHab Report – March 6th

Crew 206 Green Hab Report – 06-MAR-2019

GreenHab Officer: Norbert Pouzin

Environmental control: Heating and Cooling w/ ambient air (1 hrs)

Shade Cloth (40%)

Average temperatures:
Low: 17.3°C
High: 36.9°C

Hours of supplemental light: 0 Hours

Daily water usage for crops: 4.1 gallons

Water in Blue Tank: 241.1 gallons

Crops watered at 0915 hours (1.3 gallons) and 1830 hours (2.8 gallons):

TIME NOTED TEMPERATURE(° C ) / HUMIDITY(%)

1) 09.15 AM 18.9° C / 42 %
2) 11.00 AM 22.6° C / 40 %
3) 15.00 PM 27.9° C / 23 %
4) 18.30 PM 21.3° C / 37 %

Changes to crops: Cress keeps sprouting but only on one gardener.

Narrative: Today the greenhab planning was quite disturbed due to the journalists : I did my experiment the morning, but on the afternoon I couldn’t go there to monitor the temperature.

Harvest: Parsley : 3g

Support/supplies needed: None.

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Journalist Report – Mar 06th

Crew 206 – 03/06/2019

Sol 10

Author: Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

“Into the Wind”

I spent a very bad night, measured by my Dreem headband as 5 hours 49 minutes night. This device is a sleeping band we wear each night and that monitor our sleep quality : duration, sleep phases, agitation… Confinement has a sneaky infuence on humans. It can change behaviour, impulsivity, irritability or motivation. Personnaly, it seems to have an impact on my sleep !

Sadly we have no pictures of the EVA of the Day, indeed we left the Hab with no SD card in the camera. We have a lot of checks before leaving the airlock : working suit, gloves, med kit, GPS, watch, radios. Unfortunately this morning we were attentive on the security check and forgot that little card ! The walk was beautiful between Canyons, the Reservoir Dam, flat and rocky areas. We shot a lot of pictures with our eyes, sealed in our memories : “Click” as our astronomer and executive officer like to say in such moments

.

The MDRS Campus has been visited today by a film crew. They were very respectful of our mission and we managed to continue our martian work and life without seeing them any time. Except Jérémy that have been interviewed for the documentary.

In the afternoon, the Hab was hit by the wind. Thanks to our weather station, we were supposed to receive the values of the wind : direction and speed. Unfortunately for us, the wind was too strong for the installation and the tripod fell on the ground. The martian soil is not ideal to fix things with pegs. We will go for a reinstallation and reparation (if necessary) EVA tomorrow. It’s sad when we think that less than three hours before we were next to it changing the batteries. The adaptation to environment is important for missions to Mars. On Earth, the more similar example is science lead in Sahara desert or in Antarctica.

The end of the afternoon was more calm and relaxed. The wind stopped making noises around the MDRS. We were all together in the Hab talking, working on our reports, and watching VR videos for a human factors experiment.

We faced snow at the beginning of the mission, then rain, and now wind is threatening us. The martian climate isn’t clement with us ! But we managed to adapt our mission and our goal each time the weather changed !

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Operations Report – Mar 6th

Crew 206 Operations Report 06 – MAR – 2019

SOL: 10

Name of person filing report: Gaspard Thieulin

Non-nominal systems: Generator

Notes on non-nominal systems: Radiator hoses and
alternator need replacement on generator. A contractor has
been arranged to make these repairs within a few days.

Generator (hours run): 13 hours

Solar— SOC % – Turned off Gen : 80%, generator still off at 1900 (87%).

SOC tracking : Tracking is a mess today because of the special events. I
will get a cleaner baseline tomorrow.

Notes on electricity: We have no special needs in electricity other than
some computers and heavy batteries charging.

Diesel Reading – 65%
Propane Reading – 79%

Ethanol Free Gasoline – 7 gallons

Water (Auxillary tank) – Not in use
Water (Static tank) – 410 gallons
Water differential (static tank) – 11 gallons

Gallons transferred: Not Applicable

Water in GreenHab – 241 gallons

Static to Loft Pump used – Yes

Water Meter: 0141677,1 gallons

Toilet tank emptied: Yes

Deimos rover used: No, still not functional
Hours: N/A
Beginning charge: N/A
Ending charge: N/A
Currently charging: N/A
Sojourner rover used: ASSIGNED TO DIRECTOR
Hours: Not Applicable
Beginning charge: Not Applicable
Ending charge: Not Applicable
Currently charging: Not Applicable

Opportunity rover used: Not used
Hours: 53,0 hours
Beginning charge: 100%
Ending charge: 100%
Currently charging: Yes

Curiosity rover used: Used
Hours: 77,8 hours
Beginning charge: 100%
Ending charge: 74%
Currently charging: Yes

Spirit rover used: Used
Hours: 78,9 hours
Beginning charge: 100%
Ending charge: 56%
Currently charging: Yes

Notes on rovers: Nothing to report.

ATV’s Used: N/A
Reason for use: Not used
Oil Added? N/A
ATV Fuel Used: N/A
# Hours the ATVs were Used today: None
Notes on ATVs: None

Hab Car used and why, where? Not used.

Staff Crew Car used and why, where? Off Campus

General notes and comments: Nothing to report.

Summary of internet: Still investigating. Nothing more to report today.

Summary of suits and radios: Nothing to report.

Summary of Hab operations: Nothing to report.

Summary of Green Hab operations: Nothing to report.

Summary of Science Dome operations: Nothing to report.

Summary of RAM operations: Nothing to report.

Summary of any observatory issues: Nothing to report.

Summary of health and safety issues: Nothing to report

Questions, concerns and requests to Mission Support: Nothing more to report.

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Science Report – Mar 06th

Crew 206 Science Report 06-Mar-2019

You’re lucky, today we wrote our first science report of the mission. You’ll have the chance to see our first results !

The attached piece is the graphs of our first week on water monitoring.

Regards,

Crew 206
Submitted by HSO/Science Officer Cerise Cuny

1. Microbiological water analysis (Aquapad) : I have done 3 series of 3/4 1 mL aquapads since the beginning of the mission. The number of bacteriological colonies is higher than the sanitary criteria (100 UFC) but lower than the infectious limit (300 UFC). As the water we extract in Hanksville is without a doubt adapted to drinking, maybe the bacterias proliferate in the tank as it is exposed to the sun all day.

Serie 1 : 117 UFC in average after 48h of incubation
Serie 2 : 227,7 UFC in average after 48h of incubation
Serie 3 : 192 UFC in average after 48h of incubation

2. Water Monitoring : For now, our way of monitoring our water consomption is way more efficient than last year Supaero Crew’s (Crew 189). Nevertheless the system can still be improved. We have a new method to do the dishes that is more economical. See attached PDF for numbers.

3. Simulation space suit : It was brought to MDRS to be compared to the actual suits and the conditions of the simulation. They were able to put into light the imperfections of their suit but also its advantages and they oriented the future development process.

4. EVA tracker app : We are still facing issues.

5. Music for plants : The biggest issue is an equipment one : the UV lamp the Greenhab Officer brought didn’t work due to the differences in US and EU electrical system. He used the UV lamp that was in the science Dome which is not powerful enough. The experiment may not work as planned.

6. The human factors experiments won’t be described here in order to avoid bias.

Water monitoring.pdf

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EVA Report – Mar 06th

Crew 206 EVA Report 26-Feb-2019

EVA #8

Author: Cerise Cuny

Purpose of EVA: This EVA was supposed to allow us to do some maintenance on the LOAC (battery level and rain protection). In addition to that, we wanted to go on a long hike to compare the actual space suits to the one our crew is developing.

Start time: 9:06 am

End time: 11:20 am

Narrative: After the 5 minute depressurization, we checked the water levels and the rovers’ batteries. At 9:16 am the engineering check was over and we took the rovers to go to the LOAC location. We changed the battery and improved the water protection on the LOAC. When that job was done, at 9:26, we didn’t take the rovers immediately because we saw a car moving ahead of us, probably the CNN filming crew. After asking the hab to sort the issue with Atila, we decided to change our plans and go to the north. We stopped at 9:46 am at 518545/4253080 to go for an exploration walk. We found the landscape really interesting and were surprised that the canyon we walked in wasn’t named on the map. There was a light shower but it was so short that we didn’t have time to go back to the rovers and I decided that it wasn’t necessary to go back to the hab. When we got to the rovers (10:46) we decided to keep exploring around Reservoir because CNN filming crew was still in the hab. At 11:05 we took the rovers back to Pouce corner and when the HabComm Team assured us the CNN filming crew was gone, we went back to the hab and entered the airlock.

Destination:
Coordinates (use UTM NAD27 CONUS): 518500/425700 (LOAC and Weather Station), 518545/4253080 (first exploration stop), 518545/4252800 (Reservoir)

Participants: Jérémy Auclair (CMD), Benjamin Auzou (COMMS), Cerise Cuny (HSO, EVA leader), Gaspard Thieulin (NG)

Road(s) and routes per MDRS Map : Entrance Road , Cow Dung Road

Mode of travel: Driving and Walking

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Sol Summary Report – Mar 06th

Crew 206 March 6th 2019
Sol 10

Summary Title : Windy day

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : We got up a little after 07:00 am to begin the work out. The sun wasn’t shining this morning, but we were feeling great. At 09:00 am we were almost ready for EVA, the new LOAC battery was fully charged. Outside the ground was pretty dry, we went straight to the weather station to do a quick maintenance. After that we went north instead of going to kissing camels, CNN’s filming crew was still arriving, so we didn’t want to hold anyone up. After 10 minutes of driving we stopped to start our exploration. We discovered that the camera had no SD card, so we couldn’t take any pictures. We walked east towards a canyon that wasn’t noted on the map. After a little walking it started raining lightly, so by precaution we decided to go back to the rovers in case the rain didn’t stop, but after 4-5 minutes it did stop. We took the rovers to go to reservoir dam, to explore it. When the CNN filming crew left the Hab we went back to the Hab. During that time the two others were in the science dome. This afternoon I was interviewed by CNN, the rest of the crew worked on their experiments. In the afternoon the wind started to go up a lot, we noticed that it had tiped over the weather station and the LOAC, we need to fix it quickly.

Look ahead plan : We hope to be able to go on EVA tomorrow to fix the LOAC, but the weather doesn’t look like it wants us to go out.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Cloudy all day, high winds in the afternoon

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : LOAC maintenance and Reservoir Dam exploration

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Report, EVA
Request, Science Report

Support Requested : Tissues

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Sol Summary Report – Mar 06th

Crew 206 March 6th 2019
Sol 10

Summary Title : Windy day

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : We got up a little after 07:00 am to begin the work out. The sun wasn’t shining this morning, but we were feeling great. At 09:00 am we were almost ready for EVA, the new LOAC battery was fully charged. Outside the ground was pretty dry, we went straight to the weather station to do a quick maintenance. After that we went north instead of going to kissing camels, The filming crew was still arriving, so we didn’t want to delay anyone. After 10 minutes of driving we stopped to start our exploration. We discovered that the camera had no SD card, so we couldn’t take any pictures. We walked east towards a canyon that wasn’t noted on the map. After a little walking it started raining lightly, so by precaution we decided to go back to the rovers in case the rain didn’t stop, but after 4-5 minutes it did stop. We took the rovers to go to reservoir dam, to explore it. When the CNN filming crew left the Hab we went back to the Hab. During that time the two others were in the science dome. This afternoon I was interviewed by CNN, the rest of the crew worked on their experiments. In the afternoon the wind started to go up a lot, we noticed that it had tipped over the weather station and the LOAC, we need to fix it quickly.

Look ahead plan : We hope to be able to go on EVA tomorrow to fix the LOAC, but the weather doesn’t look like it wants us to go out.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Cloudy all day, high winds in the afternoon

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : LOAC maintenance and Reservoir Dam exploration

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Report, EVA
Request, Science Report

Support Requested : Tissues

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Journalist Report – March 5th

Crew 206 – 03/05/2019

Sol 9

Author: Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

“Martian Wild Life”

Second day of our second week here in the MDRS, also the return of the routine ! We began the day with our sport session and yesterday and today, we all broke our records of the previous week. We are on the way to the roof of the Olympus (Mons).

After climbing the slopes of the western area of the Hab, the EVA team of the day walked along Hab Ridge. Aurélien, Norbert and Jérémy were the last crewmembers that never went here, after Cerise, Gaspard and I explored this zone last week. On their walk around the area, they spotted three strange animals. Under the surprise of that discovery, they didn’t manage to identify the species.
Jérémy took advantage of the view up there to shoot the whole landscape in order to create a panoramic view from the ridge. Such places are perfect for photo passionates like him, the colors and the relief of the day and the clear and pure sky of the night are beautiful to capture. The result is wonderful, a large picture of the Hab and the landscape around it : 170 MB of red dust and blue sky.

After three days of hard time trying to finish the Mars puzzle, Cerise, Gaspard and I finally managed to assemble the thousand pieces and we wrote our crew name with Crews 198, 203 and 205 at the back of the puzzle. When we added the last piece to it, an exclamation of joy echoed in the Hab. Crew 207 and following crews, we challenge you to assemble the puzzle during your rotation !

In the afternoon, the Green-Hab was musical ! Indeed Norbert continued his experiment on the influence of music and frequencies on plants resistance under radiations. We’re waiting for his first results that will certainly fall in the last days of the mission.

This night will mark the mid-mission milestone for us. As we turn in the second part of this extraordinary adventure, the crew is still holding strong together, and seeing the end of this journey coming both excites and frightens us.

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