Day: February 1, 2023

Crew 274 Journalist Report 2-1-2023

Sol: 3

Author: Tony DiBernardo, Crew Journalist

Title: Holocene and Harvest

The members of Crew 274 woke up this morning to the song “Holocene” by Bon Iver, sent to them by Dean Welsch, the Head of the School of STEM at APUS. His message outlined how appropriate the song is for our mission. “Holocene” is the name of our most recent geologic era of Earth’s history, where humans realize they are part of something bigger than themselves. What better than this to inspire us to continue our mission in preparing the future generations that will found a new settlement on Mars.

EVA Activity

After doing two EVAs on each of the first two sols of the mission, the crew took a break from EVAs today to focus on preparing tomorrow’s EVA to deliver the cache a 2-hour hike away for HSO Pender’s experiment.

GreenHab

Greenhab Officer Hines conducted daily research data shortly after conducting GreenHab operations at 11:00 am MST. Similar to the day prior, both microgreen and LDEF seed sets are retaining both temperatures and moisture while sustaining overnight temperatures. Additionally, the first signs of germination have been noted in both the cress and red cabbage microgreens, which will continue to be monitored closely over the upcoming days alongside the progress of the LDEF seed sets. To the

Astronomy

Chief Astronomer Pena and Heliophysicist Loy captured 70,000 images of heliophysic phenomena. These photos and videos supported critical space weather data and generated distinct, measurable visuals of the Sun’s outermost layer, the chromosphere, and solar dark spots, heliophysical granules, and solar prominences. This data was then analyzed, staked, measured, and configured through 3 astrophysics software applications. The resulting images will be used to help the astronomy crew in their scientific assessments of solar cycles and its implication to space weather.

Engineering and Hab Design

Hab Specialist O’Hara worked with Crew Engineer Lojek to troubleshoot and return the Musk Solar Observatory to nominal working order after experiencing a limit switch malfunction. O’Hara also completed an in-depth review of the Repair and Assembly Module (RAM) and the GreenHab, gathering photo documentation, and dimensional, concept of operations, traffic flow, systems and layout notes.