Sara Paule, Crew 289 Journalist & Executive Officer
12.31.2023
Sol 7
Martian rest day is the best day! Ok, hardly. High achievers like to get things done and our crew is certainly a group of highly motivated individuals. Yet, we have managed to have a comparably low-key day, especially since it is New Year’s Eve.
The day started with sleeping in and a stack of tropical crepes, supplied by Pots. She flavored the crepes with coconut milk, cinnamon, and the water from rehydrated strawberries, blueberries, and mangos. In addition to the reconstituted fruit, we had an assortment of toppings to choose from: syrup, Nutella, crunchy peanut butter, smooth peanut butter, and honey. Delish.
Brunch was followed with a few rounds of Jenga before the crew broke up for the afternoon to handle 2-4 hours of needed tasks for the day and assorted research responsibilities. Everyone returned to the hab in the late afternoon to watch Bollywood dance videos. Michelin is educating us about Indian dance moves in hopes of some evening time dancing. Ultimately, the videos are the next tactic in his recruitment drive after introducing us to some Indian music last night because he has warned us all he will not dance without at least one other participant.
The crew then teamed up on the 500-pieces “Mars Explorers Wanted” puzzle from the hab games cabinet. With irregularly shaped pieces, it has proven a particular challenge but we trust that it will be completed before dinner or, at least, we are hoping so. Otherwise, we’ll be eating dinner on top of the puzzle because our dinner table, which is also our report drafting table, is the puzzle table. Overall, people are mostly enjoying themselves. I think. Then again, Rocky declared at one point, “This is fun. Remember, we’re having fun!” while pounding on the table. Shrub also suggested that a knife would allow us to edit the puzzle to make any piece fit as needed. So, maybe I’m misreading the fun quotient.
There has been bopping throughout the day. Music has been a constant throughout the hab today, including in the GreenHab. We’ve learned that plants like EDM so in addition to the composting, watering, and careful tending via trellising and pruning, the plants are being tempted to grow with good tunes. Music is also good for confined astronauts. Plants and people-alike are in a good mood thanks to tunes downloaded pre-mission. Many tunes are space themed. Rocket Man is a regular occurrence, obviously.
Tonight, our New Year’s Eve celebration will include a biryani made by Butter and Michelin. It is smelling absolutely amazing. Since we skipped lunch today with a late brunch, we did do some minor snacking in the afternoon by raiding the kitchen cabinets for creative tasty treats. Tortillas with butter, salt, garlic powder, and parmesan were the most commonly consumed item. Peanuts and trail mix supplemented. Mostly, these were items to tide us over until we could enjoy dinner since our celebratory biryani dinner was planned last night with much anticipation. It was well worth the wait. The spice was so good.
The post-dinner plan is to settle down in the “couch” space at the very top of the hab with popcorn and a movie. I’m not sure anyone on Crew 289 has really utilized that area of our living space. It is only accessible via a ladder since it is situated above the 6 bunk rooms on the upper deck of the hab and is next to the 1 bunk room that is similarly in the loft space. I take the lack of usage of that area as a sign that our home feels reasonably spacious despite the fact that the central building is only 8 meters wide. Around midnight, we’ll ring in the new year with some sparkling juice – this time a fancy rosé.
From Mars, we are wishing our loved ones and all on Earth, a positive end to 2023 and a beautiful new year.
GreenHab Report – December 31st
GreenHab Officer: Riya Raj
Environmental Control: Heater on, fan off, door closed.
MORNING
Average Temperatures:
Avg Temp – 11:20 am (86 °F)
Relative Humidity – 10 %
AFTERNOON
Avg Temp – 1:35 pm (93.9°F)
Relative Humidity – 10%
Turned on the fan for 20 minutes to cool plants
**After Watering:
Avg Temp – 2:30 pm (73.1°F)
Relative Humidity – 42%
Used 2 gallons to water all the plants (includes more misting)
Hour of supplemental light: 10pm-2am (4 hours)
Daily water usage for crops: Sol 7 – 5.5 gallons
Water in Blue Tank (200-gallon capacity): 169.35 gallons
Times of Watering for Crops: Sol 7 – 2:30 pm
Changes to Crops: added extra stakes for the cucumber plants since they are wildly growing!
Narrative:
Sol 7:
I took off the cling wrap from the carrot plants since they were growing fungus – but this is a good sign! The moisture retained! The stems of the plant got stronger, and I am hoping that the roots are now properly established. I left two more wraps on it to keep the water dripping in the soil. The cucumber plants are also becoming stronger and stronger everyday, so I tied more water to hold the taller vines. Today was also weirdly hot so I turned on the large fan to cool the plants down and make them stand up again! Eshaana also checked on her mini solar farm and now there are about 10 tiny little kales, and the C4 Bermuda grass has broken through the top layer of the soil. So many cute baby plants!
Sol 7 Harvest: None
Support/supplies needed: None
Astronomy Report – January 5th
[category
astronomy-report]
Name: Gabriel Skowronek
Crew: 289
Date: 05 Jan 2024
MONTANA LEARNING CENTER
Robotic Telescope Requested RCOS-16
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: SW Tauri (unless cloud cover)
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered: None
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested N/A (Technical Difficulties with MDRS-WF)
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: None
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered: None
MUSK OBSERVATORY
Solar Features Observed: N/A
Images submitted with this report: N/A
Problems Encountered: N/A
Additional Notes: Will continue to monitor the status of MDRS-WF and hopefully make a few follow-up observations of M1 and M42, processing images remotely. Will also continue to troubleshoot doing photometry using AstroImageJ to compare against values from AfterGlow.
GreenHab Report – January 4th
Crew 289 GreenHab Report : 4-1-2024 (Sol 11)
GreenHab Officer: Riya Raj
Environmental Control: Heater on, fan off, door closed.
MORNING
Average Temperatures:
Avg Temp – 9:40 am (68.2 °F)
Relative Humidity – 23 %
**After Watering:
Avg Temp – 9:47 am (68.7 °F)
Relative Humidity – 91%
Used 2 gallons and 18 oz to water all the plants
Humidity was higher, so I used less water since it was snowy today!!
AFTERNOON
Avg Temp – 4:30 pm (74.8°F)
Relative Humidity – 41 %
**After Watering:
Avg Temp – 5:15 pm (69.8°F)
Relative Humidity – 65%
Used 3 gallons and 26 oz to water all the plants (includes more misting)
Hour of supplemental light: 10pm-2am (4 hours)
Daily water usage for crops: Sol 11 – 5.4 gallons
Water in Blue Tank (200-gallon capacity): 146.62 gallons
Times of Watering for Crops: Sol 11 – 9:47 am & 5:15 pm
Changes to Crops: Rearranged and cleaned greenhab, added inventory list, arranged the tomato cages
Narrative:
Sol 11:
I woke up today with the outside landscape covered with a floofy blanket of snow!Since our EVA was canceled today, we had the whole day to work on our research! I started working on my air quality sensor and it should be almost done! I went to the I wanted to check on the tomatoes and there are now 22 tomatoes! There are a bunch of baby ones that have been slowly growing and they look so cute! Adriana made some awesome pasta salad again for lunch and we used most of the kale, lettuce, and basil!
After lunch, I went back to the greenhab to work on cleaning up! I taped the inventory list on the large tank to help keep track when planting! I also worked on organizing the plants and tools! I used the empty white baskets to arrange the gloves and spades. The tomato plants were growing their leaves really fast, and I wanted to space them out. I put the smaller plants in the front near the wall for extra sun and I put the plants with the most tomatoes in between to keep the moisture proper. I arranged it as 4×3 to keep the spacing even. I also put the broccoli and radish plants in the front with the mint! OH! I saw one tiny little mint leaf growing so I am hopeful! I put the cling wrap on it again and poked in more holes! Eshaana is also making some yummy curry and rice again, so I grabbed some cilantro leaves for her!
Sol 11 Harvest:
Cilantro: 9 grams
Kale: 34 grams
Basil: 4 grams
Lettuce: 12 grams
Support/supplies needed: None
Astronomy Report – January 4th
[category
astronomy-report]
Name: Gabriel Skowronek
Crew: 289
Date: 04 Jan 2024
MONTANA LEARNING CENTER
Robotic Telescope Requested RCOS-16
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: SW Tauri (unless cloud cover)
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered: None
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested N/A (Technical Difficulties with MDRS-WF)
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: None
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered: None
MUSK OBSERVATORY
Solar Features Observed: N/A
Images submitted with this report: N/A
Problems Encountered: N/A
Astronomy Report – January 3rd
[category
astronomy-report]
Name: Gabriel Skowronek
Crew: 289
Date: 03 Jan 2024
MONTANA LEARNING CENTER
Robotic Telescope Requested RCOS-16
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: SW Tauri (unless cloud cover)
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered: None
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested N/A (Technical Difficulties with MDRS-WF)
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: None
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered: None
MUSK OBSERVATORY
Solar Features Observed: N/A
Images submitted with this report: N/A
Problems Encountered: N/A
Astronomy Report – January 2nd
[category
astronomy-report]
Name: Gabriel Skowronek
Crew: 289
Date: 02 Jan 2024
MONTANA LEARNING CENTER
Robotic Telescope Requested RCOS-16
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: SW Tauri (unless cloud cover)
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered: None
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested MDRS-WF
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: M1 (Crab Nebula), M42 (Orion Nebula) (unless cloud cover)
Images submitted with this report: M1
Problems Encountered: Neither M1 nor M42 have been imaged.
MUSK OBSERVATORY
Solar Features Observed: N/A
Images submitted with this report: N/A
Problems Encountered: N/A
Additional Notes: I’ve decided to process the previous images I took of M1 when I first arrived for the sake of practice and feedback.
Crew Photos – January 1st
Astronomy Report – January 1st
[category
astronomy-report]
Name: Gabriel Skowronek
Crew: 289
Date: 01 Jan 2024
MONTANA LEARNING CENTER
Robotic Telescope Requested RCOS-16
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: SW Tauri
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered: None
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested MDRS-WF
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: M1 (Crab Nebula), M42 (Orion Nebula)
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered: Neither M1 nor M42 have been imagined. Furthermore, I wanted to process the M1 images I currently have for the practice, despite them being overexposed. However, there doesn’t seem to be any flat or dark calibration images taken. Is this problematic? If so, how should I set up an observation to make sure that they are there?
MUSK OBSERVATORY
Solar Features Observed: N/A
Images submitted with this report: N/A
Problems Encountered: N/A
Additional Notes: I was able to get reasonable estimates for the magnitudes of my images of SW Tau using Afterglow (between 9.3 and 10.4). However, I just wanted to get numbers from AstroImageJ for comparison but am having trouble in choosing the aperture sizes. I noticed that magnitude is variable depending on the size of the aperture I choose and am not sure how to go about choosing the radius of object aperture and inner/outer radius of background annulus? The video tutorials seem to show that there is an ‘Auto’ option for this which is not available on my end.
Astronomy Report – December 31st
[category
astronomy-report]
Name: Gabriel Skowronek
Crew: 289
Date: 31 Dec 2023
MONTANA LEARNING CENTER
Robotic Telescope Requested RCOS-16
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: SW Tauri
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered: None
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested MDRS-WF
Objects to be Imaged this Evening: M1 (Crab Nebula), M42
Images submitted with this report: None
Problems Encountered:M1 has yet to image
MUSK OBSERVATORY
Solar Features Observed: N/A
Images submitted with this report: N/A
Problems Encountered: N/A
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