Category: Commander Report

Sol: 11
Summary Title: Freezing Mars
Author’s name: Marta Ferran-Marqués, Commander and Crew Scientist
Mission Status: Nominal
Commander Report: The WoMars crew woke up this morning at 8 am. After the commander’s debrief, Laurene and Cristina went to the RAM to clean everything up. Meanwhile, Paula and Marta went to the GreenHab to water up the plants and clean the space. Later in the morning, Laurene and Paula had their last time-delayed communication sessions with their loved ones.

Cristina and Laurene went for an EVA around the surroundings of the MDRS to continue with Lazarus’ experiments – the visual odometry robot developed by Dronomy. After lunch, Paula and Marta also went for an EVA around the surroundings of the MDRS and completed the experiments with Lazarus for the Nerio I mission. The sky was gorgeous today, showing blue, pink and purple colors.

Once back in the Hab, Marta had her last time-delayed communication session with her brother. After writing all the reports, the crew will cook dinner and have a relaxing night!

Sol: 10
Summary Title: The commander turns 27 on Mars
Author’s name: Marta Ferran-Marqués, Commander and Crew Scientist
Mission Status: Nominal
Commander Report: Today it was a special day for the commander, as it was her 27th birthday. The crew woke up at 7.30 am, and had pancakes made by Laurene, the pancake-master. Later, Paula went to the GreenHab to water up the crops while Marta had a Braided communication session with her loved one.

The crew gathered together to bake a carrot cake for Marta’s birthday. Later, the crew reviewed the food inventory, continued updating the WoMars website, and did some astronaut training by following Tim Peake’s book.

After cooking ‘falafel’ crepes, the crew had lunch and celebrated Marta’s birthday by singing and eating the cake. Later in the afternoon, the crew played The Mind again, but this time, blind! It is crazy how the crew is now mentally connected. After going to the Science Dome and analyzing the salinity of the rocks collected in the last EVAs, the crew wrote all the reports for mission support and did a workout and stretching training.

Finally, the crew prepared the commander’s favorite dinner – pizza!

Sol: 9
Summary Title: Busy day on Mars
Author’s name: Marta Ferran-Marqués, Commander and Crew Scientist
Mission Status: Nominal
Commander Report: Our crew woke up this morning at 8 am, and had a light breakfast. As usual, Paula went to the GreenHab to water up the crops. Later, the crew had a team building session where they played The Mind – a team card game. Today was a big day! The crew reached the last level of the game, level 12. This shows how the team has been evolving and growing in confidence during the Nerio I mission. When the crew started playing, a couple of days before arriving at the MDRS, they weren’t able to reach a higher level than 4.

Later in the morning, Paula had a time-delayed communication session with her friend while the rest of the crew downloaded, organized and sent some data from the visual odometry robot (Lazarus) to Dronomy. Then, the crew took some pictures of the station for the WoMars website.

After lunch, Paula and Cristina went for a walking EVA around the Hab. The main goal for the EVA was to test Lazarus’ robot further and explore the area around the MDRS. Meanwhile, Laurene and Marta did some astronaut training, where they needed to solve some astronauts’ exercises and word problems.

After a long day, the crew will have a warm soup for dinner while they finish the movie they started yesterday – Gone Girl.

Sol: 8
Summary Title: A good start for the week
Author’s name: Marta Ferran-Marqués, Commander and Crew Scientist
Mission Status: Nominal

Commander Report: Our crew woke up this morning at 8 am, and had a light breakfast. Later on, Paula went to the GreenHab to water up the crops and the crew continued with the troubleshooting for the EVA suits. The troubleshooting activities are progressing well and almost all the suits seem to be working now. After the crew downloaded, organized and sent some data from the visual odometry robot (Lazarus) to Dronomy. The EVAs are helping with the experiments and Dronomy is getting valuable data. Then, the crew went to the Science Dome and analyzed some more rocks collected in previous EVAs. The crew is creating a salinity map based on the EVAs carried out and the rocks analyzed up until now.

Laurene and Paula prepared lunch – an amazing lentils dish that brought me back to Spain! Thanks for that, girls.

In the afternoon, Laurene and Marta went for an EVA around the MDRS to take some more data for Dronomy and explore new areas close to the Hab. The EVA was a success! The crew walked for 7 km and arrived at the station exhausted, but the views paid off. Meanwhile, Paula and Cristina continued with the troubleshooting activities and the WoMars website and outreach.

After a tiring and stressful day, tonight is a hamburger and movie night!

Sol: 7
Summary Title: A chilled Sunday on Mars
Author’s name: Marta Ferran-Marqués, Commander and Crew Scientist
Mission Status: Nominal
Commander Report: Our crew woke up this morning at 8.30 am, and Laurene prepared some pancakes – that was great for a Sunday morning! Later in the morning, the crew did some troubleshooting activities in the EVAs suits. As the day before, the crew realised that the air of some suits was not working properly. Once the crew detected the best suits available, Paula and Laurene went for an EVA around the MDRS Ridge. The purpose of the EVA was exploration. However, Laurene’s suit was not working properly and the crew had to come back to the Hab earlier than expected. Meanwhile, Cristina and Marta continued with the troubleshooting activities – thanks Mission Control for your support on that!

Paula and Marta cooked some Quinoa and cheese bread for lunch – the crew really enjoyed this meal. Later on the day, the crew relaxed and enjoyed a chilled Sunday by watching a World War I movie. Then, the crew continued with more troubleshooting activities for the EVA suits.

Tonight we will prepare a lighter meal – the crew is ready for the second week of the Nerio I mission at MDRS!

GreenHub Report
GreenHub Officer: Paula Peixoto Moledo
Environmental control: 18% Humidity
Average temperatures: 27ºC/36ºC /25ºC
Hours of supplemental light: N/A
Daily water usage for crops: 27,5L ≈ 7,2 Gallons
Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: None
Water in Blue Tank 72 gallons (it was wrong yesterday)
Time(s) of watering for crops: 9:30am – 8 pm
Changes to crops: None
Narrative: I watered the plants 2 times today as everyday since the beginning of the mission. Today I am going to harvest Microgreens to have a nice dinner with them!
Harvest: Microgreens
Support/supplies needed: None

Commander Report
Sol: 6
Summary Title: Everything’s gonna be alright
Author’s name: Marta Ferran-Marqués, Commander and Crew Scientist
Mission Status: Nominal
Commander Report: Our crew woke up this morning at 8.30 am, one hour later than usual, as it is Saturday. For breakfast the crew had some handmade chocolate chip cookies and coffee. Later in the morning, Cristina and Marta went for an EVA around the MDRS Ridge. The purpose of the EVA was to continue the experiments with Lazarus, the visual odometry robot designed by Dronomy – a spin-off from Madrid, Spain. The crew compiled valuable data, making it a successful EVA. The views from the top of the Ridge were spectacular!

While Cristina and Marta were outside, Laurene had her Braided Communication session with her loved one and then helped Paula cleaning the Hab – good job girls! The Hab smells really good now!

In the afternoon, the crew repaired some connections from Lazarus’ robot in the RAM and then they went to the Science Dom to inspect some of the rocks picked at The Overlook during yesterday’s EVA. The crew will prepare a Mars’ map indicating the salinity of the soil in all the areas explored until now. The map will help understand the probability of growing plants in specific areas.

After a busy and stressful day writing all the reports, the crew relaxed and had dinner together – pizza night!

Crew 245 Commander Report 17th April 2022
SOL: 07
Name of person filing report: Vittorio Netti

It`s Easter on Mars! We are gonna celebrate with another round of local meals after two very challenging EVA for the whole crew. We received all the resupply missions from the Earth and all the experiments are running smoothly. Today we also tested a new compact helmet developed by Mars Planet technology. The wind slowed down allowing a new drone mapping mission. halfway through our mission, morale is high and we started processing the scientific data. We can`t wait to see the results of our tireless work. But today we celebrate.

Commander out,

many events to report for our report of Sol 1.

Due to the lack of information about the last three packages, we decided this morning to wait one last day "out-of-sim" in case a trip to Salt lake city is in order to pick them up. Luckily the situation was resolved around lunchtime, with the confirmation that private couriers have picked up the packages and will deliver them tomorrow eventually.

We spent the day planning and preparing the experiments for the next days and fixing different small hardware failures that affect the habitat and the mission tools. That included the water sensor, the batteries of three different suits, and one of the steps of the stair to the upper deck.

We had our first amazing meal cooked by Crew Journalist Benjamin Pothier, we are thinking to elect him the official SMOPS mission chef.

In the afternoon we also performed a full 3D scan of the RAM module, to test our advanced handheld lidar 3D scanner.

High winds are still hitting the habitat pretty hard. The external airlock door has been slammed open destroying the left wooden barrier. We have been able to close and secure back the door, but the situation was too dangerous to attempt repairs of the barrier.

The simulation will officially start tomorrow morning at 7.30 am. Two crew members, (XO Paolo Guardabasso and Crew Eng Luca Rossettini) will need to break the sim for about 1 hour to recover the last shipped objects as soon as they are delivered.

Commander out,

Vittorio Netti

Last but not least!

Today was quite amazing. It was the last day of our simulation and everyone was a bit sad and at the same time excited and proud of what we accomplished.

In the morning, as usual, we had a good breakfast. Then, at 09h00, a part of the crew went for the last EVA. This group was composed of Cyril, Jean, Ignacio, Sirga, Julie. The weather was perfect for that EVA, a huge sun with no wind!

Also, the landscape was amazing.

At 12h30, we ate some soup with some homemade bread, the last one. We enjoyed it and had a good discussion.

At 14h30, the simulation ended and we started cleaning the station.

I would like to thank my team who did an extraordinary job and with whom I wish to realize many more missions and adventures.

This experience has changed my life and I can’t thank MARS UCLouvain enough as well as the Mars Society and Dr. S. Rupert for allowing me to do this adventure!

See you soon for new challenges!

Best regards,

Cyril