Journalist Report
Nicole Chan, Crew 290 Journalist
01.10.2024
Sol 3
At the end of Sol 2, we successfully carried out our callsign ceremony, officially naming Melon (Madelyn), Chopper (Rebecca), Freebee (Anja), Funk (Ben), Roots (Anna), and PODO (Nicole). After two busy Sols of onboarding and settling into our rotation, the crew was granted a later start in their work day. We all awoke from a great night of sleep to the smell of coffee and bread, courtesy of Anja (Freebee) testing out the bread machine before bed. The sun was already out and shining through our Hab windows and made for a pleasant start to Sol 3. The crew seized the day and went straight to work after a breakfast of pancakes from Freebee (stepping up her cooking for sure). With chocolate chips and plenty of condiments (peanut butter and Nutella), it was a unanimously amazing meal and brings back great memories of having similar pancakes on Earth.
In preparation for EVA 4, Freebee worked on troubleshooting any issues with REMI and was successful in the setup. Ben (Funk) and Anna (Roots) were performing soil salinity tests in the GreenHab while Rebecca (Chopper) continued setting up the ScienceDome for the sample collection EVA and Madelyn (Melon) evaluated the area’s geology for future EVA sites. Our lunch was a nostalgic PB&J sandwich with Freebee’s homemade bread. Though dense, the bread had a mild sweetness to it and gave us the energy to continue with our Sol 3 objectives. Shortly after, EVA 4 crew, which consisted of Freebee, Funk, and myself (Podo), began suiting up and headed out to the Hab’s surrounding area with REMI. It was a very productive and successful EVA! REMI roamed around several geological points of interest and collected radar data while Funk and Podo identified viable sample collection sites and proceeded with temperature and salinity tests of the soil alongside sample collection. Funk settled into a routine where he was responsible for digging at the sites while I took pictures of the site as well as the measurements of the soil sample depth. The shovel we had on hand took a toll as Funk was determined to collect samples on the surface in smectite, at 3 inches deep in clay, and at 6 inches deep into shale at the site. The physical demand of the task was well worth the scientific output of the samples. We are all excited to see what we will find through the soil tests. With Melon on CAPCOM, we made plenty of field notes that will aid in our analysis.
After returning from the EVA, Funk headed over to the GreenHab to mist the precious plant babies and performed valuable knowledge transfer with Crew 289’s GreenHab officer Riya to understand how to better support the plant growth. In addition, the plants had a more diverse music therapy today so hopefully they feel loved and cared for by our crew. Chopper was hard at work in the ScienceDome at the laminar fume hood to set up microfluidic device tests to process the soil samples from EVA 4. Dinner is served by Funk tonight and smells amazing as I am writing this report. It will be Hearty Chicken and Potatoes with a side of mixed vegetables and a sour cream dill sauce (from our dill harvest yester-sol). We cannot wait to dig in and look ahead at the rest of this week’s EVAs and review science objectives together. The science experiments are all set up and as Chopper introduces the crew to the testing protocol, we look forward to making awesome findings in the coming days.
Photo of the Day: 290-01_10_2024 eva 4 begins