Category: Journalist Report

SOL 26: A New Chapter

“At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

We started the day knowing very well that it would be our last morning in simulation… We took full advantage of our last workout session, during which Lise compiled all of the Crew’s favorite exercises! All Crew members loved the workout. As it had rained all night, and continued throughout the day, the weather conditions didn’t allow us to perform the scheduled EVA. During this EVA, we wanted to dismantle atmospheric instruments and bring them back to the station, but we couldn’t: the conditions were too muddy. In addition, because of the lack of sunlight, the solar panel providing energy to the station was not efficient enough, so we had to spend the day in the dark, to save electricity! The mood was very different than usual: EVA cancelled, lights off, the end of the simulation getting closer and closer… However, we had a lot of things to do to keep our minds occupied! We took advantage of being all together at the station to start and organize our luggage, to store and clean all the modules. We have a lot of equipment, we have to be careful in not forgetting anything!

Despite all of this, the last sessions of the neuroergonomics experiment and the last cognitive tests took place this morning. It is the end of studies and experiments for Crew 293! We are proud of all the experiments we led and all of the data we managed to generate.

We had fixed 4 P.M as the end of simulation time, to retrieve atmospheric instruments. We opened the airlock: we were officially back on Earth! Wearing our black flight suits to be protected from the mud, we could breathe Earth’s air as much as we wanted. We under-estimated the happiness this recovered sensation would create! But we had no time to lose: the atmospheric instruments were waiting to be dismantled! Kneeling in the wet dirt, we dismantled and brought everything back to the station. In the Lower Deck, we cleaned everything (included ourselves!) and continued putting all of equipment safely away.

Even though the simulation is over, atmosphere is joyful in the station between Crewmembers! It is the end of the mission in the station, but we still have a lot of work to do. Ending the simulation doesn’t mean that the research stops! We still have to handle data, give feedback about results and procedures to researchers, and much, much more… In the end, the end of the simulation is just the beginning of a new chapter for Crew 293!

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

SOL 23: The calm before the storm

“As each day passed I would learn, in our talk, something about the little prince’s planet, his departure from it, his journey. The information would come very slowly, as it might chance to fall from his thoughts.” – The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Today was our last day of mission without performing an EVA! Indeed, from tomorrow to Friday, we planned one EVA per day, for the last week of photogrammetry or to retrieve the atmospheric instruments before the end of the mission. No EVA means a lot of work inside for the Crew, whether on our computers or on equipment for experiment inside the station. For example, this morning, after a magnificent sunrise, Mathurin and I tried to find a solution to a problem we have with our outreach experiment, built with high-school students, to grow plants in Martian soil. Indeed, we noticed yesterday some mold on the red planet’s soil, and even after observing it with the microscope, we can’t understand where the problem comes from! Talking about experiments, Léa continued working on her informatic code which enables her to analyze sunspots on Sun’s pictures taken thanks to the Solar Observatory. Yves and Lise finished preparing the Kissing Camel Ridge 3D map made thanks to photogrammetry during yesterday’s EVA. They located all the checkpoints on the map, for us to find them during our next EVAs! A day inside also means maintaining the station. Leo solved in a few minutes the problem we had with our kitchen sink. Indeed, for a few days, the water was hardly draining. It was becoming complicated to wash dishes : we are using 4 liters of water only each time we wash the dishes for a 7 person meal, so the water becomes dirty really quickly. We are really grateful to our Crew Engineer because thanks to him, we have our functional sink back.

At the end of the morning, Marie and Leo were cooking for us for the last MELiSSA meal of the mission. The recipe was the one with the vegetable gnocchi that we already tested and liked, even though it is not very fast to prepare for a Crew! The end of this experiment made us realize the amount of data we produced during four weeks of mission, and how much productive we were! We can’t wait to give feedback to the researchers about the experiment we conducted, and especially we can’t wait to see the results provided to science thanks to our mission!

At the end of the day, Leo and I prepared our EVA for tomorrow, during which we’ll have to reach checkpoints placed at Kissing Camel Ridge. We relied on the 3D map of the area, and we took notes and drew to be able to find each checkpoint once on site! It will be the first time for Leo to perform an EVA in which he’ll have to search for checkpoints and not to place them! Meanwhile, other Crew members were working on other subjects that are keeping us busy for more than three weeks! Being seven in the Crew enables us to split the tasks and to be efficient on each experiment we brought with us to the station.

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!

SOL 20: Back to the Canyon

“I’ve crossed these sands many times,” said one of the camel drivers one night. “But the desert is so huge, and the horizons so distant, that they make a person feel small, and as if he should remain silent.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

This morning, Crew 293’s last EVA to Candor Chasma took place! Léa and I had to find 12 checkpoints scattered all along the canyon. We prepared the expedition yesterday thanks to a 2D map and a topographic map. Mathurin was with us during the EVA: his goal was to count our steps, to take notes about our timing and performance. As we were getting closer to the site with the rovers, Mathurin had to stop his rover sooner than Léa and I, because his battery had drained faster than ours, and he would not have been able to come back to the station if he had continued. Léa and I continued driving Opportunity, to get as close as possible to Candor Chasma, and to limit our walking time to the canyon. Of course, we kept Mathurin in our line of sight at all times. Even though we found almost all of the checkpoints in less than an hour and a half, the 3D team was more efficient yesterday… But we are very proud to have managed to get this far, and we performed better than last week at North Ridge! Plus, going to Candor Chasma means enjoying its exceptional geology. Upon arriving at the end of the delimited search area, we were amazed to notice how far the canyon extended. The large rock tours surrounding us made us feel tiny compared to the Martian terrain’s wideness!

Back from the EVA, we were very tired. A 4-hour hike under the Martian Sun, while climbing on rock walls, is exhausting! We were lucky to just have to sit at the table to eat a plateful of good mashed potatoes from MELiSSA that was waiting for us! During lunch, we recounted our EVA to the rest of the Crew, and Crew members who stayed at the station brought us up to speed as well. Yves, who was our HabCom, cooked a brownie for dessert, Leo took care of the GreenHab, and Marie and Lise confronted both the software and hardware problems of the EchoFinder experiment. Everyone was productive during the absence of the EVA Crew!

During the afternoon, after some Crew members rested for a while, everyone followed its planned activities. Léa made impressive solar observations for her astronomy project. Yves and Marie tried once again to make EchoFinder’s equipment work for another session, which wasn’t very successful…

For the past few days, Lise and Leo have been preparing in secret an activity for tomorrow, that they finished today. We can’t wait to see what it is, and to enjoy tomorrow to rest. We need to be in good shape for our last week on Mars!

SOL 21 : A Sunday Quest

“Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victors being severely tested.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

This third Sunday of the mission wasn’t so ordinary! Of course, we had our normal Sunday activities during the morning, such as a longer sports session and cleaning, but then, we started the game prepared by Lise and Leo!

They had been organizing the game for a week, in secret. The rest of the Crew had no idea of what was going to happen, except for the fact that we would be playing a game collectively. It turned out to be a station-wide treasure hunt! Our mascot had disappeared, and the Crew had to find and save it! We went from hint to hint, from module to module, to answer the riddles and advance on our quest. Lise and Leo had prepared everything , we even had to play games and duel them! On our way, we worked as a team, working to solve the riddles, which were sometimes very complicated, and to find the next hints. The game lasted the whole afternoon, and we all had so much fun! It was a mind-bending and laugh-inducing Sunday, enjoyed by the entire Crew.

Even though, at the end of the day, we came back to more serious considerations. Every evening, we fill out all of our daily questionnaires for various studies. For two weeks, in addition to all questionnaires, we had been interacting with AI4U, an artificial intelligence tool developed by CNES. One by one, we answered questions, testing the accuracy of the vocal reconnaissance software. But this evening was our last session with AI4U!

At the end of this intense day, we are cooking a good meal and preparing for a restful night, to be ready for the last week of our rotation!

SOL 22: Good Vibes Only!

“Don’t forget that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else. And don’t forget the language of omens. And, above all, don’t forget to follow your Personal Legend through to its conclusion.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

To start the week on a good note, Yves and Mathurin initiated the last step of the Photogrammetry experiment. During their EVA, they went to Kissing Camel Ridge in order to take pictures of the area and to generate 2D and 3D maps of it. Twice we explored the northern part of the station’s surroundings, but this time, we turned right after leaving campus, taking the southbound road! It enabled us to discover new Martian landscapes… During this EVA, Yves and Mathurin needed to be with another Crew member. This time it was Lise, instead of Leo the two previous weeks. Lise, who had loved searching for the checkpoints in the previous destinations, was on the other side of the experiment this time, and she loved it all the same! Her goal, with Yves, was to find where to put the checkpoints while Mathurin was taking the hundreds of drone pictures. During the week, there will be new exploration teams with the 2D or 3D map. This is the last iteration of an experiment we all very much enjoyed participating in!

Meanwhile, Léa and Marie wrote some new outreach articles for our website, and every Crew member who wasn’t out on EVA was busy accomplishing their planned tasks, from experimental data handling to cognitive assessments in the Hab or GreenHab.

The MELiSSA activity, prompting us to cook meals with fresh vegetables and not only dehydrated food, continues to delight the Crew! Today for example, Léa and I cooked a very tasty carrot cake for lunch. Crew members who were out on EVA enjoyed this great meal after being out for a few hours. Then, in the early afternoon, Lise and Mathurin tried to solve problems they had in their code for retrieving data from our smart watches and impedance meter. They put in common everything they had done on their own. At the end of the afternoon, we all enjoyed a virtual reality experience: in this personalized video for each of us, we were surprised to see Arnaud Prost, a French astronaut, wishing us good luck and giving us advice for the end of our mission! This video cheered everyone up, and gave us that final bit of motivation we needed, to end all of our studies and experiments in a grand finale!

SOL 17: Here comes the Sun!

“Then I am happy. And there is sweetness in the laughter of all the stars.” – The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The rescheduled EVA disrupted our routine today. Indeed, we are used to performing EVAs in the morning. But today, to solve 3D map’s errors and do photogrammetry again to Candor Chasma, Yves, Mathurin, and Leo chose to go out when the Sun was at its highest point, to avoid having too much shadow in the drone’s pictures. The EVA was performed between 10 A.M and 2 P.M. The Crew was warmer than usual in their suits! However, they think that they will be able to generate a better 3D map than the previous one, thanks to the strategy they followed on site. Yves started to sort the pictures this afternoon, trying to keep some pictures from the previous EVA. He will let the software process the new photos, and we will use the new 3D map tomorrow to prepare the next EVA!

During the EVA, Léa, Marie, Lise and I stayed inside the station. We were very efficient too! While I was in contact (as HabCom) with Yves, the EVA Leader, Lise improved the code to read our Core Data sets, recorded by the impedance meter every morning. Her objective is to make the code as robust as possible, to enable future crews to use it as well, and compare our data to theirs. Meanwhile, Marie worked on AMI’s deployment, now mostly operational. We now have the final version of the software, enabling us to simulate the station’s power management and to simulate sensor anomalies that we need to check in the modules placed in “warning” mode. These anomalies can get worse and become an emergency, forcing us to apply an emergency EVA protocol. The last good news of the day concerns Léa, our Crew astronomer. Deprived of the Solar Observatory since the beginning of the mission because of a malfunction, it was fixed this morning, so she could perform her first solar observations! She was very happy, but she could only observe our star for a few hours this morning, because of the afternoon’s cloud coverage… The Crew hopes for the Martian weather to be merciful so she can continue her astronomy project, focusing on sunspot detection, and on evaluating their speed and direction.

For lunch, we cooked carbonara pasta. Thinking about it, we didn’t use all the carbonara pastas’ ingredients. No bacon, no “crème fraiche”. Indeed, we don’t have all these ingredients in our dehydrated food, but we found a great alternative that we use in a lot of our meals… Bechamel! We became professionals of the recipe with dehydrated food! It is always delicious, but we are starting to miss earthly food, we all dream of eating good ‘Schokobons’!

SOL 18: A multi-faceted Crew

“The world speaks many languages.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

When we don’t go out on EVA, like today, the atmosphere always feels more relaxed. Indeed, we usually start EVAs at 9 A.M, which forces us to be very efficient from the start of the day, after the sports session. On the other hand, when there is no EVA planned, we take a little bit more time to do sports, and we are in less of a rush during breakfast. This morning, Leo even took time to cook pancakes for the Crew to start the day well!

Then, each Crew member goes about his or her activities, which can be very different. Today for example, Yves continued working on the 3D photogrammetry map. The end result is not the one we were hoping for: yesterday’s EVA wasn’t useful because the photogrammetry software failed at generating a good 3D map, even though we added new pictures. Our Crew Scientist spent the entire day working meticulously, manually erasing every false point on the map… At the end of the day, his work had paid off: the 3D map was usable, and Lise and Marie could use it to prepare tomorrow’s EVA!

In the morning, I performed an EchoFinder session on our commander Marie. We have some problems with the software that does not enable us to record as many images as we would want, but we are working very hard to solve that. Léa spent the entire Sol on her astronomy project, now that she can make some solar observations. She works on sunspot detection, thanks to a code she developed. Leo, on his side, changed the EVA suits’ dead batteries. He ran some tests to check that the ventilation systems are performing nominally, and that no EVA crewmember will run out of air while out in the Martian desert. In the GreenHab, Mathurin repotted some plants that were too close to each other to grow correctly. He also optimized the remaining space to plant new seeds!

For lunch, we ate a new MELiSSA meal. The objective is to use fresh vegetables in our recipes and to see how much time it costs the Crew. Today, we ate some delicious vegetable gnocchis, made from potatoes and carrots by Yves and Lise. It was delicious, but the Crew agrees on the fact that cooking individual food items like gnocchis is not ideal for time optimization for astronauts on Mars!

SOL 19: Martian topography

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." – The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The photogrammetry EVA of this morning was a huge success! Even though Mathurin and Yves weren’t fully convinced by the 3D map of Candor Chasma generated by photogrammetry, Lise and Marie found all the checkpoints surprisingly quickly: they went through the 12 checkpoints in less than one hour! They identified yesterday the checkpoints thanks to the 3D map, and prepared the path they wanted to follow. It seems like their preparation was efficient! Even though they were fast in finding the checkpoints, the EVA lasted 4 hours because Candor Chasma is located far from the station, and we had to walk a lot to arrive at the searching site. Assisted by Yves during the EVA, Lise and Marie came back to the Hab exhausted by their expedition, but proud of their performance!

This morning during the EVA, Mathurin piloted the drone from the inside of the Science Dome in order to take pictures of a future path we’ll take on an EVA, and to capture images of the station from the sky! For the seven of us, it was strange to see our living place being so little and seeming lost in the huge Martian desert. On his side, Leo, while he was HabCom for the EVA, meaning he was in permanent contact with the EVA Crew, cooked some pancakes for the Crew. We were delighted to eat them as a dessert for lunch!

Like almost every day, various Crew members did cognitive assessments. For the Orbital Architecture experiment, we perform 3 tests per week and per Crew member, in three different places of the station: the Hab, our major living and working place; the GreenHab, a silent place close to nature; and the Science Dome, a more peaceful working place. Today, there were tests in each module! The tasks we must perform are various, but mostly about concentration, working memory and multitasking.

Finally, at the end of the day, Léa and I prepared tomorrow’s EVA. We’ll go to Candor Chasma as well, but we prepared ourselves with a regular 2D map. It will be hard to counteract Lise and Marie’s performance from this morning!