Sol 21 – Sunday Slumber
“They all came out and looked at the sky that night. They left their suppers or their washing up or their dressing for the show and they came out upon their now-not-quite-as-new porches and watched the green star of Earth there.”
– – Chapter 21 of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Our third Sunday in the MDRS started out as usual: with a little more sleep for the entire crew. After yesterday’s emotional rollercoaster, somewhat rested, we tucked into some more pancakes prepared by Alice. We watched and laughed as she tested AI4U’s joke functionalities; over the past week, Alexandre has continued running tests on the program to help the CNES researchers make the right changes to it, with future space missions in mind.
Our third Sunday in the MDRS continued not exactly as usual: two crewmembers were scheduled to go on an EVA. As Sol 20’s outing was cancelled, the batteries on all atmospheric instruments had not been changed and had been left in the cold; Alexandre had therefore requested a Sunday EVA. Despite the 20 mph winds, which the crew is now used to hear blowing around the station, Alice and Alexandre managed to change all three batteries and retrieve the data. Unfortunately, the LOAC had to be brought home once again to be fixed, as it has not been collecting any data for the past Sol…
With everyone back at the Hab for the afternoon, everything started to feel like a real Sunday at MDRS, and we were glad to have more time to rest after Friday night’s events. Naps were taken, movies were watched, books were read.
Despite not being able to work on his astronomy project due to a malfunctioning robotic observatory, Alexandre has taken up astrophotography. Along with Adrien, he set up a tripod and camera under the glass dome of the observatory to take advantage of the beautiful Martian skies. We have not yet been able to see Earth from up here, we are still actively looking…