Journalist Report – December 11th

Last night the crew watched Galaxy Quest, prepped for the next day, before calling it a day. In the morning, the commander played two songs: Ian’s and Monish’s. Sol 3 was EVA 4 for Crew 305. Ian got some geology measurements from the streams, Hunter collected some soil samples for his crop growth research, and Rashi evaluated the performance of the OTV rover on the drive through to Candor Chasma. Back at the Hab, Spruha worked mainly on assembling the rover, Peter set up his experiment for cognitive testing, and Monish was able to get the “carbon dioxide” and “air quality” sensors to read and broadcast data. By the time EVA 4 returned to the Hab, Peter prepped up lunch. Today’s special was “Peter’s Personalized Pizzas”. Upon returning to EVA 4, everyone had dinner together. Post lunch, each of us participated in Peter’s cognitive test while the rest of us worked. At around 4:50 PM, near to when the switch happened to the generator, we had a brownout following total power loss. The mission support worked for about an hour on the generator to get it up and running, but that didn’t work. After about an hour and half of work on the generators, mission support decided that it was best to break the sim. Technically, this meant that crew 305 is all dead. The mission support came in at around 6:30 PM to help the crew bring the power back. We took the power generator out from the RAM, and several extension cords which extended to provide power to the Greenhouse space heater, mission support trailers, and the furnace. Mission support made runs to the town to get fuel for the generator, as the generator had no fuel and there was no backup fuel on the site. After some trial and attempt, we got the greenhouse space heater working to keep the plants in good condition, mission support trailers, and Habitat furnace. At the end of the mission support window (9:00 PM), the Hab still doesn’t have power. More to come in the next report.

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