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