Journalist Report – February 28th

Hello CapCom !

Journalist report – Sol 10

Prepared by : Alexandre Martin (Crew Journalist) – 28 feb 2018

Here is my report of the day.

Best.

Journalist report, 02/28/18: Already mid-rotation!

Today is already our 10th day of mission, which means we are overpassing its half. Altogether, this pivotal day has been rather quiet. No EVA was indeed planned for today. After our daily sport, most of the crew went to the GreenHab in order to replace the tarp, which protects plants from the sun, as it was turned in the wrong direction. A task which was rather hard to achieve: the temperature inside the GreenHab is indeed 100°F in order to preserve plants health, sweating the team. In the late morning, both teams succeeded in each situation of KTNE, which seems to become too easy for us. Jérémy had yet less success in his own experiment: he suffered web connection issues, and Benoît could thus not drive the rover. While Louis and Victoria started an additional sport session, making the team question their sanity, Benoît and Gabriel wanted to live a new culinary experience and decided to mix bread dough with food coloring. The obvious result: bread sharing his color with Smurfs. A black market of food is also starting to be organized inside the Hab, through

As half of the mission is already over, it is time to draw a first review of our experience. Our daily life has indeed suffered a dramatic change since our arrival at the station! To take a daily shower: over. To do the dishes after each meal: over. To eat lavishly: over. To take a break outside anytime we want: over. To be able to contact our close relatives anytime we want: over. To be able to be totally isolated: over. We had to become used to any of these situations! Everyone seems to have its own hardest lack to deal with, yet the separation from friends and family is often he hardest, and then comes the food, then the lack of fresh air. We learned to save almost anything: from food to water, from our oxygen during EVA to our energy during sport session. For the moment, no one has for example taken more than one shower! And those were not the kind of shower that is usually had: we keep the falling water in a large basin to use it to rinse ourselves! The food rationing might be the hardest for the team: even each member of the team was near to come undone since the beginning of the mission! However, only 9 days of mission are remaining, it is up to us to continue to work along the same lines!

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journalist.

Greenhab Report – February 28th

Hello again Capcom,

Here is today’s greenhab report, coming from Jérémy:

GreenHab Report
AUCLAIR Jérémy
28 Feb 2018

Environmental control:

(door closed)
Heating once the sun was down
80 % Shade cloth on

Average temperatures:
Around 37 °C at 10am, around 30 °C the rest of the day

Hours of supplemental light: from 7pm to 9pm

Changes to crops: Cute down all the overgrown tomato leaves to free some space and allow the plants to grow further

Daily water usage for crops: around 11 gallons

Time(s) of watering for crops: 9:00 am and 7:20pm

Narrative: Today we put the 80% shade on all the GreenHab. We were four and it took us 2 hours, under the burning sun, it was a hassle. But Now it’s done, and it looks good. I worked quite a lot during the afternoon to take care of the plants. The GreenHab looks better day after day, makes me feel good.

Support/supplies needed: wooden sticks to support falling plants

Cheers,

Louis

Commander Report – February 28th

Crew 189 Commander Report 28Feb2018

Sol 10

Title: Our mid rotation day

Dear Earth,

Yesterday, we agreed to stay in the station all day and not go to EVA.

As usual, we woke up at 7 AM to do our physical training, but after that we had breakfast without the hurry of the EVA preparation. Gabriel cooked pancakes and we took time to talk about our beginning of rotation. The idea was to make it possible to everyone to work on their own experiment and to do some maintenance in the station.

After the breakfast, Jérémy, Gabriel, Louis and I went to the greenhab to deploy the new shadow cover. It was such a horrible oven. We spent almost three hours doing this maintenance task. We were all dehydrated after this, but it was a very nice teamwork once again. After this nightmare, we spent one hour playing the human factors experiment of Gabriel. With my team, we did a very nice performance (once again). Alex and I are the leaders of the competition, while Benoit and Louis are last ones (and noisiest ones).

After this nice and busy morning, we had a very usual lunch, eating our lovely beans. Everybody came undone and had their first OREO. The beginning of the afternoon was quiet and dedicated to personal time and human factors experiment. At 5pm, with my fellow friend and sports coach Louis, we decided to have a second physical training. I have to confess I felt not really well at the end, and had to spend 10 minutes sitting down. When I came back in the upper-desk, I discovered that my professional-bakers-crewmates cooked a new bread with some … blue food coloring. Hopefully it smells very good!

We are now on the brink of the second half of our mission here. I feel that everyone has taken his marks, the different personalities seem to be in accord and the crew atmosphere is incredible!

Ad Astra!


Victoria Da-Poian,


Commander of the Bread-Smurf crew 189

Sol Summary – February 28th

Hello again Capcom,

Here is today’s sol summary:

Crew 189 Sol Summary Report 28 Feb 2018

Sol 10

Summary Title: Inside Ops

Author: Louis Mangin

Mission Status: All nominal

Sol Activity Summary:
Today started with another general good performance during the sport session: everybody is in good shape and athletic in this crew! After breakfast, four of us spent the morning upgrading the GrenHab by adding the new shade, and cleaning/ reorganizing it. The day went on with work on our experiments: human factor experiments, location, EVA logger, solar panel cleaner.

Look Ahead Plan: Exploration of Lith Canyon, deployment of location and logger systems, human factors experiments, emergency procedures follow up.

Anomalies in work: Water leak in the Hab Lower deck

Weather: Warm and sunny.

Crew Physical Status: Fine.

EVA: –

Reports to be file:
Commander
Journalist
Engineering
Greenhab Officer

Support Requested: –

Louis Mangin
Crew 189 Commander

Journalist Report – February 27th

Journalist report, 02/27/18: In case of emergency

As today’s EVA was planned on the afternoon, our sport session was delayed by one hour. Yet I obviously forgot to change my alarm clock, and I was the only one to be woken up at 6.30am. Hopeless to get back to sleep, I decided to wait for our evil session: the 3 times 20 second mode was back today. However, it seems that the workout benefits to everybody. We indeed all beat our personal scores in nearly every exercise: Louis for example could do 70 push-ups, Jérémy was able to deliver 90 half-squats, while I was capable to do 85 lunges, all in 1 minute. Laurent even succeeded in making 104 head shakes, though real crunches would have been better. After around 10 days in the station, we are all getting in a better shape: each one lost about 2 to 3 pounds of fat!

The day was dedicated to emergency procedures. Our health and security officer Laurent prepared us a 2 hours briefing on the morning. He explained at first the good habits to have when one finds someone injured. What is the most important is to make a statement of the situation: if the place still can be dangerous, what the causes of the incident are, how the victim is behaving. Gabriel was the one to play the victim for a while: he was repeatedly placed in recovery position and was flipped over onto his back. After these global gestures, Laurent became more specific in his showing. We are not in a Martian simulation for nothing! In such environment, these gestures would indeed be mainly practiced through spacesuits… Some gestures are indeed becoming much more complex: in the case of a vertebrae issue, it would be impossible to maintain the head because of the helmet. Cardiac massage would be compromise, and even acknowledge if someone is breathing or not becomes a hard task. Finally, even repatriate someone to the station would be problematic: with our spacesuits, everyone is 20lbs heavier, and there is no solid hold on it.

Laurent was thus leader of today’s EVA, where he would be able to try these procedures on the outside in real conditions, along with Louis, Jérémy, Victoria, Gabriel, Benoît. Jérémy and I would be the only two to guard the fort. While Victoria, Gabriel and Benoît made a short detour to our instruments, in order to change the battery of the MegaARES, Louis and Laurent dealt with some small tasks around the Hab. While the other half of the team came back shortly after, they were ready to go on with the procedures. Victoria seemed to quite enjoy the recovery position, as she has often been in this situation. The team dealt with a lot of different situations and diagnosis, in order to cover a large amount of the injury possibilities that could one day happen into space. In the meantime, I served as HabCom for the team: I was their referent inside of the Hab, harvesting the data they give me about the resources of the station, such as water level, the state of our vehicles, etc. They finally came back into the Hab after only 2 hours, as they had completed everything they wanted to do.

Our evening was punctuated by our traditional KTNE session, which is becoming increasingly harder: instructions are now incomplete in each manual, and teammates have to be coordinated in order to be able to succeed. Gabriel also gave us the first ranking: Victoria and I are at the moment on the top, yet things will certainly change rapidly, as the hardest part is to come! Benoît also seems to be getting some issues dealing with food: while we split our remaining energy bars yesterday between the crew, he already ate almost half of them! It will be hard to keep going like this until the end of the mission!

Operations Report – February 27th

Crew 189 Operations Report 27Feb2018

SOL: 9

Name of person filing report: PAYEN Gabriel

Non-nominal systems: Pipe leak, tires compressor

Notes on non-nominal systems:

-The pipe still leaks at the low deck

-During the EVA the crew tried to use the compress and blow front tires. It worked for the right rear wheel but failed for the right front wheel. A tip seems to miss on the compressor because it impossible to screw the compressor on the wheel tip firmly, so that we had to hold it with our hands.

Generator (hours run): Turned off at 9:00 AM and turned on at 7:00 PM

Solar— SOC 72 % (Before generator is run at night)

Diesel – 52%

Propane – 30 psi.

Ethanol Free Gasoline (5 Gallon containers for ATV) – 5 (50% each) gallons.

Water (trailer) – 0 gallons.

Water (static) – 400 (~80%) gallons

Trailer to Static Pump used – NO

Water (loft) – Static to Loft Pump used – YES

Water Meter: 131 505.9

Toilet tank emptied: NO

ATV’s Used: 1

Oil Added NO

ATV Fuel Used: Gals

Hours the ATVs were Used today: 30min

Notes on ATVs: –

Deimos rover used: NO

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging:

Sojourner rover used: ASSIGNED TO DIRECTOR

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging:

Spirit rover used: NO

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: YES

Opportunity rover used: NO

Hours: 18

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 100%

Currently charging: YES

Curiosity rover used: YES

Hours: Beginning of the EVA : 15.2 , end of the EVA : 15.3

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 99%

Currently charging: YES

HabCar used and why, where –

General notes and comments: –

Summary of internet: –

Summary of suits and radios:

Inventory of all working and non-working headsets/radios

Radios : All work

Headset : Two don’t work

Summary of Hab operations: –

Summary of GreenHab operations: –

Summary of ScienceDome operations: –

Summary of RAMM operations: –

Summary of health and safety issues: –

Questions, concerns and requests to Mission Support: –

EVA Report – February 27th

EVA Report:

EVA #7 Crew members: Laurent BIZIEN (EVA leader), Benoît FLOQUET, Louis MANGIN, Gabriel PAYEN, Victoria DA-POIAN

Author: Laurent BIZIEN

Location:

Near Pooh’s Corner: 12S-518900E-4250900N

Hab surroundings

Time: departure at 2:12 p.m. Duration: 1h30 (shortened by 1h15)

Purposes:

  • Replace the battery of MegaARES
  • Train to emergency procedures

Narrative:

We started the EVA by splitting the involved members of the crew in two teams (we have learnt later by Shannon that it wasn’t something to do in EVA so I take the responsibility of such a decision error). Team red, composed of Victoria, Gabriel and Benoît took a Rover, Curiosity, and an ATV, 350.2. They went to Pooh’s Corner in order to change the battery of MegaARES and also checked the battery of LOAC instrument. At the same time, team blue, Louis and I, did the usual checks of the other Rovers (today, only Opportunity was there) and ATVs and of the water tanks. We also tried to inflate the tires of ATV 350.1. We didn’t succeed for the front left tire.

Team red quickly returned and we could start the emergency procedures. On the morning, I had made a speech to the other members of the crew about the emergency procedures some future marsonauts could encounter in EVA.

We started with a basic situation. One person simulating a health problem and another person to make a review. After a few instances, we followed up on emergency transportation. To do so, we brought Curiosity next to a person simulating a victim. The exercise’s goal was to transport the victim up to the Rover, from different ways depending of the victim’s injury. Finally, we performed realistic injury cases (bone traumatism, unconsciousness, respiratory arrest…) leading to emergency transportation and LSPs in the Rover’s trunk.

Realizing that the emergency procedures in EVA were very limited due to the lack of ability to move of the backpacks and of the helmets, we decided to return to the Hab. We carried Victoria into the main airlock and Gabriel stayed with her while Louis, Benoît and I went back to the Hab by the engineering airlock in order to simulate an emergency return.

2:12 p.m.: EVA#7 left Airlock

2:15 p.m.: Team red left the Hab

2:20 p.m.: Team red’s arrival at Pooh’s corner

2:30 p.m.: Team red’s leaving from Pooh’s corner

2:35 p.m.: Team red’s arrival at the Hab

2:40 p.m.: Beginning of the emergency procedures

3:40 p.m.: End of the emergency procedures

3:45 p.m.: EVA#7 back in the Hab

Commander Report – February 27th

Crew 189 Commander Report 27Feb2018

Sol 9

Today started by me waking up after the moonset to try to shoot stars
pictures, and it resulted in a failure as the sun was already rising,
adding too much light. I then set up a timelapse shooting for the
sunrise and went back to bed.

Today was dedicated to emergency procedures, so that after the sport
session, we spent two hours being formed by Laurent on how to react to
a medical emergency. We then had a brainstorming on how to adapt it to
an EVA situation. This was a very interesting discussion, we
postulated that we had heart pulse and breathing captors, segmented
suits, so that a leak could be confined to a specific area. This was a
very productive time, and we gathered a lot of interesting ideas.
After some bomb defusal and lunch, we went outside to test this out.

Laurent was logically EVA leader, and after a quick battery
replacement on the MegaARES, he put us in several emergency situation,
always using an accomplice to play the victim, to let us react and
train us in situ. This didn’t go as well as expected as the backpack
and helmet are very wide and annoyed us while moving a victim. We also
struggled to charge a victim inside the rover, but proved that it was
possible, and created a protocol to charge him with three crew
members.

It is very satisfying to see our colleagues progressively taking the
lead. We let them take responsibilities, manage the time… Laurent lead
the whole day today and did fine, so did Jérémy yesterday, as EVA
leader. After having spent a lot of time leading and organizing the
whole schedule with Victoria, we now have an independent crew, ready
to success in this second part of the Mission.

Tomorrow is going to be quiet, as almost everybody has inside job
planned. Most of the experiments need to be worked on, and we don’t
have a short-term objective, so that we won’t go out. The whole crew
is already motivated and joyful, everybody keeps spending a lot of
time together, even during free time, and it surely help maintaining a
good crew cohesion. Hope this goes on for the following!

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