Crew 214 Sol 6 2 Nov 2019
by Sandy Dance
Following our water scare the other day, we decided to delay the pumping of water from the low tank to the high tank for as long as possible. Consequently, despite the CapCom advising that we pump the water up last night we decided to wait until this morning. Mistake? Yes and no. When we came to pump this morning, nothing happened. So we contact the engineering team. The problem is likely that the pipes froze overnight, hence the caution in the MDRS Handbook on page 24 advising that the pumping happen in the evening. So we wait until noon. Still no water. This time the engineering team find that the actual(?) problem was that the hot water system was plugged into the same circuit, overloading it. Now we have water! And the lesson: this hab is complex, and needs to be treated with respect.
Today the EVA expedition went out to continue the micrometeorite experiment, scanning the square metre plots for micrometeorites. They were able to complete another 10 plots, finding more fine magnetic dust in each.
This morning we inspected yesterday’s findings with a 40X optical microscope, but we are still unable to determine the origin of the particles. We may need to use an electron microscope back in Australia for this.