Category: Journalist Report

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Journalist Report – May 15th

Today was Sol 10.

This morning there was an EVA taken by two crew members who went to Marble ritual. The aim of the EVA was to continue on with drone testing. However, during the testing of the search and recover function with a dummy aeroplane, there was a take-off failure.

After the EVA, maintenance work was done on the Hab. The water pump was changed to prevent further leaking. After the installation the pressure increased enough to activate the hot water in the boiler. In addition the water filter was changed.

There was progress made on the processing of the all the photos of the pelican nebula and the robotic telescope finished the observations on the Western Veil Nebula. Poor weather prevented further observations in the solar telescopes. Work progresses on revising the rover, a final attempt will be made with a 2am conference tonight with the UK.

The crew continued on with their group problem solving game.

For outreach a space outfit was made for a Barbie to encourage women in STEM fields with a university in the UK.

Finally, the crew prepared homemade bread and pizza, harvesting tomatoes for both bruschetta and margarita pizza.

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Journalist Report – May 14th

Good evening,

Today was Sol 9.

Today started with an engineering EVA to test the performance of the rovers; there have been issues with Spirits battery and Opportunities overheating. This involved traveling a total of 4 miles; the EVA was taken at 11am to try to access the rovers in the worst case scenario, midday heat. Curiosity performed fine, however Opportunity overheated after only 1.3miles and Spirits battery dramatically discharged.

In addition crew members cleaned and assessed the damage of the X-5 rover, the data from the black box was assessed to help with the next iteration of drone.

Another EVA was taken to establish contaminants in the sand, his was undertaken by Zubin’s head. The EVA whilst successful in terms of experimental point of view, there was difficulties with communicating with the Hab and due to a road being blocked the EVA was taken by walking, this involved an unfortunate oversight in timing and combined with the communication issues caused a panic in the Hab. This situation is detailed in the EVA report.

Kind Regards,

Zoe Townsend

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journalist Report- May 02nd

Today was our eleventh simulation day. The commander and vice-commander began the day with a nice morning EVA along the Hab Ridge Road. The rest of the Crew woke up at 7:30 am and we had breakfast at 8:00.

After the breakfast, the commander and vice-commander deployed their respective experiment during an engineering EVA while the rest of the team finalized their own experiments.

The deployment was postponed to this morning as different minor bugs prevented us to do it yesterday evening.The GreenHab officer harvested the Spirulina that was growing since more than a week and started to dry it.

Before lunch, the crew worked on their experiments.

At 12 am, Maxime prepared the lunch. After meal, we wanted to discuss about Nathan’s experience and his martian constitution but Chloé had to work on her experiment.

At 5pm, Nathan, Maxime, Chloé and Julien went to EVA to Grey Moon. They came back to the station at 6:30pm.

After that, we prepared the Cap Com. Each of us is working on his report and is going to send it between 7 to 9 pm. We will eat rice with tomatoes.

Like usual, we will do a crew meeting to speak about the day.

Tonight we will all observe the stars, enjoying the clear sky that the Utah offers.

Regards,

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Journalist Report – May 13th

Today was Sol 8.

Today started with a relaxed morning, the crew members worked on their own projects. There was the continuation of work on processing the photographs, more progress was made to recover the software of the rover with another 2am conference with the UK, and another batch of bacteria was mixed with soil to re-inoculate the seeds, the previous equipment has been sterilised and the bacteria has been killed.

An EVA was taken today which was 2 ½ hours long, it was an eventful EVA that was mixed with an engineering EVA. Firstly, we delivered another Mars mouse to the release point, after we went to the experiment site and started the two experiments. The first was to test the oxygen levels in the suits; a circuit was completed to show the differences in the oxygen levels. However, due to the air holes and lack of sealing a new experiment must be proposed. The drone experiment continued, with the testing the X-5 and the Palantir. A failure occurred in the Palantir during piloting, the damage seems unrepairable. Unfortunately, the EVA finished with a failure of Opportunity. Opportunity had to be towed back to the Hab during and engineering EVA.

[status draft

Today was Sol 6. We started the day with pancakes and since we are all feeling weak from the reduced nutrients we tried an attempt at banana smoothies.

In the solar telescope a photograph was taken of the sun however it was out of focus and another attempt will be made after suggestions from Peter. In addition, 65 Pelican nebula pictures have been processed awaiting the final 20 photos tonight.

Each crew member worked on their own projects today, the drones were given minor repairs from yesterday’s EVAs and batteries charged from today’s. The Martian stimulant soil has been prepared and sterilized, tomato and two different kinds of lettuce have been sowed with the soil and bacteria.

A group helped to reinstall the software for the Rover, progress is being made with the potential of success in the next few days.

Today one EVA took place, in an attempt to break the ice in the pressurization time the crew told “Dad jokes” to the EVA team. Jokes included: Why did the skeleton not go to the party? Because he has nobody to go with. These classics were not appreciated by the rest of the team! The EVA was to test the first autonomous mission, this was taken near Kissing camel and was a success.

Once returned we completed another round of the problem-solving game.

Kind Regards,
Zoe Townsend

[status draft

Good evening,

Today was Sol 5 and we had two visitors from the LA Times. The day started with the meet and greet followed by a tour of the station.

An attempt was made to use the solar telescope, but the clouds prevented observation.

Today two EVA’s took places. The first was a midmorning one to explore 3 sights on Galileo road, the URC North sight. This was completed with three members of the crew and shadowed by the two reporters.

The aim was to find plants to identify according to Paul Sokoloff study, however, problems with the Spirit rover meant that the charge ran down to 60% after the first visit and therefore the other two places will require a further EVA.

After the first EVA, we prepared lunch using cultivated foods from the GreenHab, the Green and Swiss chard was mixed into a tomato sauce and infused with Basil and Parsley also from the GreenHab. This was served to our guests alongside the leftover desserts from the Latin American cultural night.

The second EVA of the day was to run two simultaneous experiments, the first was to collect soil and rock samples to mix with previously collected soil. The mixture would then be combined with the radiated bacteria for one of the experiments we are running. The other experiment was a continuation from EVA#4, where the X-5 drone and the Tarot were flown with cameras around the Hab exterior.

Once we returned we completed another round of the problem-solving game.

Kind Regards,
Zoe Townsend

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Journalist Report – May 9th

Today we woke up to start with a morning EVA. Two experiments were run in tandem, this was the rover and drone project. The rover project was the retesting of the thermal blanket, with assistance, as per the debrief of EVA#4. The initial results suggest a successful experiment. In addition two of the three drones went for their first flight test. This involved first finding points of interest around the Hab, these points will be explored in future EVA with drones.

First observations using the solar telescope were undertaken by two crew members looking through the eye piece. Next time there is hope that the pictures can be taken of the sun.

Secondly, the problem solving experiment was ran twice. This was to make up for the missed day on Sol 1 where the crew misunderstood the explanation of the game.

After a successful European Cultural night where pasta, cheeses and desserts of Europe were showcased the left over pasta was eaten today. Basil was harvested from the GreenHab and used to make homemade pesto for the pasta. The carrots will be used tonight for the Latin American Cultural night as part of the Peruvian dishes. We love the Greenhab!

Interviews were compiled for the WOMAD festival science tent. These videos will be used as part of a final video presentation that will be displayed at the festival. In addition, written statements were taken for The Engineer blog.

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Journalist Report – May 8th

[title Journalist Report – May 8th]

[category journalist-report]

Today we undertook an EVA despite the weather, however we had to stop after 1 hour. The EVA was to run three experiments simultaneously, soil collection for bacterial experiments in the science dome, first assembly of the drones and thermal experiments of the rover shielding. However, due to weather uncertainty and overconfidence with the suits none of the experiments could be completed on times.

Upon returning to the Hab, the problem solving experiment was conducted by all members of the crew. We then ate a broccoli and cheese soup with scones.

After lunch we worked on our individual experiments. The first set up of the flight profile for a microdrone using the radio was created for the drone projects and astronomy observations from the evening of the 6th were processed for galaxy NGC4236.

In addition interviews started for the blogs for the Engineer online blogs. These are part of a series of outreach tasks being undertaken.

Finally, success in the GreenHab resulted in a yield of carrots that have been harvested and will be used later this week for a meal.

Tonight is out cultural evening for the European members of our crew. They will be preparing food, music and games from their corresponding countries.

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Journalist Report – May 6th

Good Evening,

Today was SOL 1, our first day in SIM.

Each of us took their first Mars shower, most of us managed to receive warm water however there were a few unlucky two!

We took two EVA’s today one at 08:00 and 18:00, with four of the crew in the morning and the remaining three in the evening. During this time both crews went to Marble ritual where we tested the handling of the rovers whilst wearing the suits and learning our crew radio protocol.

We spent that afternoon starting our experiments, completing questionnaires for psychology experiments, analysis astronomy photos and moving equipment to the RAM and science dome.

Kind Regards,

Zoe Townsend

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