Category: Sol Summary

Sol: 01

Summary Title: Waking up on Mars

Author's name: Pat Pesa

Mission Status: Crew is Excited!

Sol Activity Summary: Crew started off the day by taking some pictures before full simulation begins. Once "shutting the hatch" and starting full sim, we went on two EVAs to give the crew a chance to train procedures.

Look ahead plan: Tomorrow we will start weather and structural research projects with an EVA by the CMD, GEO, and ENG. *Note: weather might impact EVA schedule.*

Anomalies in work: None

Weather: Mostly Cloudy, around 30 degrees

Crew physical status: healthy

EVA: Two EVAs both to Marbleridge Wall. The 1st included CMD,HSO,JOU. The 2nd included GEO,ENG.

Reports to be filed: sol summary, commander report, operations report, greenhab report, journalist report, EVA report

Support Requested: none

Pat

Geologist, MDRS 218 

Crew 218 Sol Summary Report 22-DEC-2019

Sol: 00

Summary Title: Final Preparations

Author's name: Pat Pesa

Mission Status: Everyone is Learning!

Sol Activity Summary: Our first morning on campus was this morning. We
started off early with facility operations training. Next we finished
filling the static tank with water, and restocked on shelf stable food
to last us the remaining two weeks. After lunch the crew continued
training with Rovers and EVA suits, with plans on using both in full
simulation tomorrow. The evening concluded with final briefing from
Mission Control, Crew Dinner, and then submission of reports during
our daily communication window.

Look ahead plan: Tomorrow will be our first EVAs and Rover use.

Anomalies in work: None

Weather: Clear and Sunny, around 30 degrees

Crew physical status: healthy

EVA: none

Reports to be filed: sol summary, commander report, operations report,
greenhab report, journalist report, HSO Beginning of Mission checklist,
Mission Plan

Support Requested: none

Pat
Geologist, MDRS 218 

Crew 218 Sol Summary Report 21-DEC-2019

Sol: 0

Summary Title: The Final Approach

Author's name: Cesare Guariniello

Mission Status: everything is great!

Sol Activity Summary: our approach trajectory is getting us closer and closer to Mars. After the final review of procedures, tomorrow we will have our first Sol on Mars. Today we reached the habitat that will be our home for the next two weeks and began familiarizing with it and learning about GreenHab operations. The crew is a little tired from the long travel, yet excited about the adventure ahead. After arriving at MDRS, we took a quiz that tested our theoretical knowledge of safety and operational rules, before filling half of the water tank for our rotation. The evening ended with the traditional crew dinner at Stan's before our daily communication window.

Look ahead plan: tomorrow we will complete our training, with operations, EVA, flight suits, and mission initial briefing.

Anomalies in work: the lack of an outgoing crew required us to adapt to the situation with the help of the assistant program directors. No anomalies though

Weather: cloudy, around 34 degrees

Crew physical status: healthy and recovering from travel

EVA: none

Reports to be filed: sol summary, commander report, operations report, greenhab report

Support Requested: none

Cesare
Commander, MDRS 218 

Crew 217 Sol Summary Report 12Dec2019

Sol: 3

Summary Title: Grand Finale

Author’s name: Atila Meszaros

Mission Status: Sol 3 and end of the mission. Excitement for the future of this new and excellent program and organizing and cleaning the hab for the crew departure.

Sol Activity Summary: As the mission was beginning to end, there was only one more thing we needed to do: launch some rocket! During an hour and a half, we built, designed and put together our missiles, some of us more gracefully than others. After a harsh hour fighting with our crafts abilities (yes, S, I mean you), we had to wait for the magic glue to dry. In the meantime, part of the crew proceeded to perform our morning EVA to Hab Ridge to collect devil's toenail, seashells from the Jurassic. We organize and plant several new seeds in the GreenHab, we created miniature environments in our terrarium, made of Mars simulant soil, and planted the cutest succulents in the world (my little baby is called Piko). The rocket launching during our last EVA was something I'll never forget, Jenn and Shannon had a successful launch and recovery, while Teresa and I will keep trying. An amazing day on an amazing mission with an amazing crew.

Look Ahead Plan: Crew 217 is taking off and going back to Mars! Well, part of it, the two regular Martians will stay holding the base. The crew will be departing on different hours and by noon the Hab will have a week-off.

Anomalies in work: Nothing to report.

Weather: Warm during most of the day, partly clear skies, almost none winds.

Crew Physical Status: Tired, healthy, and accomplished.

EVA: The last two EVAs of the mission. During the first one, part of the crew explored the Hab Ridge area, next to Sagan St to collect Graphia, macroinvertebrate fossils for education purposes. The second EVA was focused on the first rocket launch during the sim.

Reports to be filed: Sol Summary, EVA Reports 3 & 4, HSO Report, GreenHab Report, Science Report, Commander Report Operations Report, Journalist Report, and Photos

Support Requested: None

Crew 217 Sol Summary Report 11Dec2019

Sol: 2

Summary Title: Mars needs teachers

Author’s name: Atila Meszaros

Mission Status: Second day on the red planet and rocking our mission goals.

Sol Activity Summary: We started the day earlier, as we needed to cover a considerable amount of activities. The morning began with a double breakfast on my side and our first Biology class from our favorite Ecology teacher, Shannon Ruppert. The main objective of the day was to get 3 types of biology samples: gypsum from the Moon areas, water from pre-selected ponds and some fragments from the mysterious unidentified green layer. All of them were collected wonderfully. We aimed to plated them on agar so we would be able to determine qualitatively the biological content of them. In order to do that, we MacGyvered the agar making business and created (patent pending) the "Petry baggies". Today has been a wonderful day, I saw Shannon put a suit and go on an EVA for the first time ever, and you don't usually see that. I haven't been in sim for a while, but spending this week with wonderful people, one more inspiring and dedicated than the next one, it's really fulfilling. I haven't been in school for a long long time, but if I had one of these teachers for just a day when I was growing up, I would have definitely changed my life. Looking forward to seeing their work and how this experience will create new and better programs for their kids.

Look Ahead Plan: Last day of the mission! We will start preparing the rockets for our afternoon EVA. Part of the crew will be doing the first last EVA to Hab Ridge during the morning. After lunch, we will be working on the GreenHab, planting and making a terrarium with Mars soil simulant. During the afternoon, small rockets wait for us to be launch And during the evening, we will try to wrap up the mission and spend our last night together.

Anomalies in work: Nothing to report.

Weather: Colder than yesterday, partly clear skies, light winds, and an impressive full moon.

Crew Physical Status: Healthy, a little bit tired, but happy.

EVA: Our first two long EVAs tackling our scientific goals: water holes, gypsum, and unidentified green layer sample return.

Reports to be filed: Sol Summary, EVA Reports 3 & 4, EVA Request, GreenHab Report, Science Report, Operations Report, Journalist Report, and Photos.

Support Requested: Science Dome materials and instruments (listed on the Science Report). 

Crew 217 Sol Summary Report 10-DEC-2019

Sol: 1

Summary Title: The First Day on Mars aka Taco Tuesday

Author’s name: Shannon Rupert

Mission Status: Our Mission is in full swing. We awoke to our first Martian day and made the most of it.

Sol Activity Summary: We spent the morning sharing our teaching experiences and activities, and at one point while I was smashing #10 cans on the upper deck, the crew was busy downstairs creating a habitat out of cups, plates, straws, file folders and recycled plastic containers. I was reminded of that Apollo 13 scene where they dump everything on the table to create a solution for the scrubber problem (“Failure is not an option”). After lunch, we trained in suits and rovers while taking our first short EVAs to the Marble Ritual. Everyone was super excited about wearing the suits and being outside. Then we settled down to a wonderful Taco Tuesday dinner with homemade tortillas and space ball taco meat. We created our work plan for tomorrow, then decided to spend the rest of the evening doing COMMS and relaxing. It’s been a wonderful but busy day.

Look Ahead Plan: We will spend the morning in the lab making plates for our halophile experiment. Then part of the crew will go on an EVA to Lith Canyon to collect pothole water samples for analysis and they will also collect samples from a green layer in the stratigraphy here and we will plate them to see what is living there. Finally, a second EVA will go to The Moons to collect gypsum samples to plate.

Anomalies in work: Atila and I needed to go to town for supplies and that set us back a couple of hours so that is why we pushed the plate making back until morning. It’s hard to create a Martian pace with only three days to do so much, but I am trying.

Weather: Sunny and very warm for this time of year

Crew Physical Status: Happy, healthy, some of us are clean, all of us will sleep well.

EVA: Two short training EVAs to the Marble Ritual, XO lead both of them.

Reports to be filed: Sol Summary, Operations Report. GreenHab Report, Operations Report, HSO Beginning of SIM checklist, Bios/Photos, Mission Plan, Journalist Report and Photos.

Support Requested: Teachers need to be added to the eList. We may not be able to send all reports this evening as we don’t know how much internet we used this morning. We have decided to turn off the wifi from 6 am to 7 pm every day as everyone still wants to use their phones for photos and in this way, we won’t have to worry about using the internet.

Crew 217 Sol Summary Report 9-DEC-2019
Sol: 0
Summary Title: The Last Day on Earth
Author’s name: Shannon Rupert

Mission Status: The teachers of the first NASA Spaceward Bound Utah mission have elected to do a full simulation beginning tomorrow
morning and ending Friday morning. We have an amazing group here and I’m really looking forward to the next week.

Sol Activity Summary: Once everyone arrived in the morning we met and determined our goals for the mission. We have set up the lower deck as a classroom for our teaching activities. Everyone got their teaching “bling, books and goodies” and their flight suits. After lunch, we did some out-of-sim exploration of Lith Canyon and are now settling in for our last day on Earth.

Look Ahead Plan: We will go in-sim in the morning and have both
teaching and lab activities planned.

Anomalies in work: Nothing to report

Weather: Partly cloudy and very warm for this time of year

Crew Physical Status: We are all super excited to be with a bunch of
like-minded people. Everyone is healthy and happy.

EVA: We did an out of sim EVA to Lith Canyon so that everyone could
experience the lay of the land without a suit.

Reports to be filed: Sol Summary, Operations Report. GreenHab Report, Operations Report, HSO Beginning of SIM checklist, Bios/Photos, Mission Plan, Journalist Report and Photos.

Support Requested: Teachers need to be added to the eList. We may not be able to send all reports this evening as we don’t know how much internet we used this morning. We have decided to turn off the wifi from 6 am to 7 pm every day as everyone still wants to use their
phones for photos and in this way, we won’t have to worry about using
the internet.

Crew 217 Sol Summary Report 8-DEC-2019

Sol: 0

Summary Title: NASA Spaceward Bound Utah Begins!

Author’s name: Shannon Rupert

Mission Status: Three members of Crew 217 have arrived today although we don’t officially begin tomorrow morning at 9 am.

Sol Activity Summary: Crew 216 left early this morning. They left the
campus as clean as I always dream it can be. My thanks for their
efforts.

Look Ahead Plan: The entire crew will meet at 9 am to determine the
goals and objectives of our week together.

Anomalies in work: Nothing to report

Weather: Partly cloudy and very warm for this time of year

Crew Physical Status: Excited to begin this adventure

EVA: Nothing to report

Reports to be filed: Sol Summary and Operations Report

Support Requested: Nothing at this time

[title Sol Summary – December 7th]

[category sol-summary]

Crew 216 Sol Summary Report 07-DEC-19
Sol: 13
Summary Title: Departure prep
Author: Marc Levesque
Mission Status: Active
Sol Activity Summary: Cleaning and packing for departure in the morning.
Look Ahead Plan: Saying good-bye to MDRS.
Anomalies in work: N/A.
Weather: Cloudy and cold overnight.
Crew Physical Status: Healthy
EVAs: None
Reports to be filed: Sol Summary Report, Operations Report, GreenHab Report, Research Report, and Astronomy Report.
Support Requested: None

Crew 216 Sol Summary Report 06-DEC-19
Sol: 12
Summary Title: Final sol in sim
Author: Marc Levesque
Mission Status: Active
Sol Activity Summary: Today was the last sol in sim for our crew's mission at MDRS. Andrew, Rich, and Evgenia conducted the final EVA in the morning to return rock samples and capture some final film footage. The rest of the day was devoted to taking a food inventory, packing, and starting the clean up process. The crew will officially go out of sim this evening at 2100.
Look Ahead Plan: Pack up personal gear, move Crew Car and personal vehicles to front of Hab for loading, refill Hab water tanks, and clean all MDRS areas.
Anomalies in work: N/A.
Weather: Clear and cold overnight.
Crew Physical Status: Healthy
EVAs: None
Reports to be filed: Sol Summary Report, Commander Report, Operations Report, GreenHab Report, Journalist Report, Research Report, and Photos.
Support Requested: None