EVA Report – January 1st

Author: Max Fagin

Purpose of EVA: Spectral sampling of sandstone clay, mudstone clay and Hematite in Goldstone region.

Destination: Between URC South and Kissing Camel Ridge, 200-300m west of Cow Dung Rd.

UDM27 Coordinates:

518100E

424850N

Participants: Max, Melanie, Cesare, Justin

Narrative: We have heard reports of hematite blueberry formations near the Goldstone Road area, and wanted to take samples with Cesare’s handheld spectrometer. Three sample sites were planned along the way to sample sandstone clays and mudstone clays. A late start meant we had to turn back after only one sample site, and limit the EVA to 1.0 hr instead of 3.5 hrs, but we made productive use of the time. While Cesare was taking spectra of rock and clay samples, Justin broke out his directional radio beacon to experiment with locating the hab. Our sample site was in a radio shadow of the the hab, so Melanie climbed a nearby hill to relay instructions between us and the Hab. This problem won’t go away on Mars (where the radio horizon is 50% closer than Earth’s), and we’ve brought equipment to mitigate it. Our crew includes three licensed ham radio operators, and tomorrow, we will use the Hanksville radio repeater (aka, “communication satellite”).

After returning, we checked two items off our engineering EVA checklist: Moving the small generator to the RAM in preparation for powering it up tomorrow, and installing a new window in the Hab airlock.

Our goal for EVA’s on this mission is to hold to a 25-50-25 rule. I.e. No more than 25% of the time from egress to ingress be spent traveling to and from to the destination, and at least 50% of the time spent on site. Today, we only spent 25 minutes on site (plus 7 minutes at the hab working on engineering tasks), which didn’t meet our goal. But we will track our performance on each future EVA to hold ourselves to improvement. Field science means field science. Not
driving-to-the-field science.

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