Category: Journalist Report

SOL 16: Sometimes you need to know how to start again…

“Actually, it wasn’t that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetration to the Soul of the World.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

The morning was very busy for the Crew! We performed various cognitive assessments, in different modules, for the Orbital Architecture experiment. The aim is to study our performances in different places of the station. For this experiment, we are also wearing different sensors. For example, one of them indicates our location thanks to anchors that Lise placed everywhere in the station at the beginning of the mission. We need to turn them on in the morning and save data at the end of the day. We also have a Polar Band, placed around our chests, with a cardiac sensor. We wear it during the day, and Crew members that aren’t bothered by it keep wearing it during the night. All data will be collected by a researcher coming from KTH University leading the experiment. Finally, we also wear smart watches. They collect a large amount of data, especially about our sleep. At first, it was a bit tricky to get used to all these devices. After 16 Sols, we don’t feel them anymore. All these sensors are not that stringent for us, especially because we know that the scientific data will be used for interesting research!

Léa, our Crew astronomer, received this morning the pictures she took during the night thanks to the robotic Observatory. It is the first time since the beginning of the mission that she’s satisfied with her pictures. It is not that easy to do astrophotography! She processed data and obtained a beautiful picture of the M-42 nebula! Now that she understands better how it works, she’s hoping for other pictures to show us!

Today, we had a setback for our photogrammetry experiment. Let’s resume the events. We performed the experiment at North Ridge last week, to compare the performances of two teams: one with a 3D map generated thanks to the drone’s pictures, the other with a classic 2D map. The photogrammetry at North Ridge was a success, and we wanted to do it again this week in a second site called Candor Chasma. Thus, Yves, Mathurin and Leo went there to take drone’s pictures yesterday. They thought that the more they take photos, the more precise the 3D map will be. It is why they took 1400 pictures yesterday, versus 650 pictures last week. Even though they were happy about their photogrammetry, they were worried about the fact that the map could be more complicated to generate. How to explain? In the middle of the scarlet desert, stands North Ridge, chiselled by the wind, draped in the usual Martian red but also yellow, green, and white. Although massive in size, North Ridge is not as intimidating as mountains on Earth can be. By its gentle slopes and round shapes, North Ridge is an invitation to climb, guided by the colour gradients of its flanks. Filled with cracks and canyons, with a good visibility everywhere, it was the perfect place for photogrammetry. Candor Chasma, on the other hand, is a scar fracturing the ground. As deep as North Ridge is high, the canyon surrounds you with its sinuous walls, pierced from all sides, like a river joined by its affluents. Angles and sharp turns make for a reduced visibility, making it not a perfect place for photogrammetry. And after 11 hours of the computer processing pictures, the software gave us a map that was not satisfying us… Some points were not located at the right place, which distorted the map. Yves and Mathurin immediately thought of starting again the process by going back to Candor Chasma and tried to organize an EVA for this afternoon! This would have enabled us to not completely change our EVA planning, but this demand wasn’t accepted by Mission Support. We rescheduled the future EVA so Leo, Yves and Mathurin could go to Candor Chasma with the drone tomorrow. It was the first time that rescheduling had a direct impact on the end of our mission, which made us realize that we’ll have to leave the station in a few days… Yves and Mathurin then spent their afternoon trying to understand how to improve their photogrammetry for tomorrow, so they won’t encounter the same problems anymore. Indeed, it is a complex subject and nobody in the Crew is an expert on it. They read documentation and made some hypotheses about the map’s errors. They have developed a new strategy thanks to these conclusions. Tomorrow, Mathurin will pilot the drone. Yves and Leo will follow the drone and guide Mathurin to better cover the area. That way, Mathurin will be able to focus only on the photos and we hope the map will be better!

Despite this event, which mobilized a lot of our Crew’s grey matter, the afternoon was calm. For example, Léa carried on working on the 3D printer, to try and make it work, while Leo and I were playing chess!

SOL 13: Winds in the East, Mist coming in

“So, once again, the world had demonstrated its many languages: the desert only moments ago had been endless and free, and now it was an impenetrable wall.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

When we woke up, the Crew heard loud wind gusts against the Hab’s walls. But we were not surprised: we were advised yesterday that today’s weather wouldn’t be nice. This is why we rescheduled the EVA to the morning, even though it was initially planned for the afternoon. Originally, this EVA was designed to be an easy EVA, just to change batteries of the atmospheric instruments. But, with the wind speed and the rain announced, we had no other choice than to retrieve some instruments in the station, and protect others from the wind. LOAC was loaded in the back of Curiosity rover, brought back to the station, and the Field Mill packed with foams and duct tape in case the mast tips over and breaks because of the wind gusts. We heard the wind blowing harder and harder throughout the day, and we were glad to know the atmospheric instruments were safe.

Winds didn’t stop blowing all day, wind gusts even blew open and nearly broke our principal airlock’s door. Once the problem was solved, winds damaged a part of the connecting tunnels which enable us to go from one module to another. We evacuated the Science Dome right before the tunnels became dangerous to move through, and decided to close it off for the time being. While the Crew was working in the Hab in the afternoon, we were glad to be comfortable inside the station, instead of outside on an EVA as initially planned!

We had some other little issues during the morning, especially with the experiments led by high school students. The plants we were growing with them were nearly dead… But we found solutions to still have data for this experiment! Léa also tried all morning to fix the 3D printer, which could be useful for plenty of applications. She has been working on it for various Sols, dealing with each problem, one after the other. Today, she found some solutions, but she thinks it will be complicated to make it work…

For lunch, we wanted to innovate for our dehydrated meals by cooking a quiche, with homemade dough. We were afraid to leave the table still hungry, so we made a large quantity of it. A very large quantity! We were unable to finish it entirely, and nobody felt hungry all afternoon!

Just before the meal, Leo showed us the mid-rotation video, which he finished editing earlier. We were all very happy to see a summary of the first half of our mission. Indeed, today, Sol 13, marks the halfway point of our mission on Mars! We can say that this mid-mission Sol was memorable and quite eventful for the Crew!

SOL 10 : Time flies !

“The boy stayed on until the desert turned pink in the setting sun. He felt the urge to go out into the desert, to see if its silence held the answers to his questions.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

This morning, Léa, Yves and I prepared for our photogrammetry EVA. Last evening, Léa and I took notes using a 3D map generated with images taken by our Parrot drone, in order to find checkpoints in the North Ridge area. Yves, who chose the checkpoint’s locations during a previous EVA, was with us to check that we found them well and took notes about our performances. He was amused to see us searching, as he knew exactly where all the checkpoints were! The EVA went very well, but it was very long! 4 hours of EVA… it was the longest outing we have been on since the beginning of our mission. We were very tired when we came back to the station, because of the itinerary that was hard to follow. As during each EVA, Crew members who stayed in the station were excited for their mates to come back and were informed of what was going on during the EVA thanks to Lise, HabCom for this EVA. When we exited the airlock after re-pressurization, we were warmly welcomed by Marie, Lise, Leo and Mathurin. They had prepared, as usual, some things for us to eat and drink to recharge our batteries quickly! We took time to recount our EVA, and the beauty of the landscapes we saw at North Ridge. Leo and Mathurin already saw them when they went to prepare the maps, but Lise and Marie will discover the red mountains during their own outing, in which they’ll have to find the same checkpoints but with a 2D map!

During our EVA, just before going to North Ridge, we had to stop at our atmospheric instruments’ site, installed at the beginning of our mission, to change their batteries. We noticed a problem in the measurements, that we didn’t understand completely while on site. This afternoon, we organized an emergency EVA for tomorrow, to go and find the problem, and try to solve it. That way, the instruments will continue measuring data!

At the end of the afternoon, we also took time to shoot videos as a Crew. It is unusual for us to be all at the same time in the same module during the day! We all wore our mission’s polos for the videos, which reminded us of the first day of simulation, 10 Sols ago! Time is passing very quickly for us in the station, it is hard for us to imagine That we are already counting with two-digit Sols! Time flies on Mars…

SOL 11 : It’s not a problem if there’s a solution

“And, when you want something, all the Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

This morning, Crew 293 performed the EVA prepared yesterday, to go and save the atmospheric instruments! The EVA Crew, Leo, Léa and Mathurin, went to the deployment site to take various measurements, like tension measurements for example, in order to identify the problem which prevented the data collection. After an hour and a half out in the Martian atmosphere, Crew members solved the problem. When they left the site, the instruments were collecting data. We are hoping that everything will go well for the next EVA!

Late in the morning, while I was performing a session for the TILT experiment, Lise and Mathurin worked on the impedance meter’s data collection. Indeed, we use an impedance meter for our Core Data measurements each morning, which record many physiological parameters: mass, muscular mass, nerve health, an electrocardiogram… This scale, which is linked to the watches that Crew members wear at all times, enables us to collect health data. Lise and Mathurin developed a code to automatically transcribe this data into a readable file. That way, we will be able to share it with various researchers we work with. Then, Marie and Lise found a solution to make the EchoFinder’s software works, we had been struggling with it for days!

Today, the Crew, and especially Léa, our Crew Astronomer, received excellent news. Léa, since the beginning of the mission, could not access the solar Observatory, because an important piece needed to be replaced. It was difficult for her because her whole project was based on the use of this Observatory. And yesterday, she received an e-mail: at the beginning of next week, it may be replaced, and she may be able to use it! So today she could enter it for the first time in 11 Sols, to start training to use the equipment. Her smile showed us that we should never give up hope!

During the afternoon, Lise and Marie prepared tomorrow’s EVA, watched by Yves. They had a classic 2D map to prepare their path to find the same checkpoints as the team who had a 3D map. They spend approximately one hour to study their map and preparing their plan. It was hard for them to find their way through the North Ridge’s harsh landscapes with a 2D map! They think they understood well but have difficulties visualizing landscapes. They don’t want to go in with too much confidence… You can imagine that a friendly competition was born between the 2D and 3D teams! This makes the experiment very enjoyable, and so Crew members are even more implicated in the results!

SOL 12: A Sol in March

“How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

This morning, Lise and Marie went out on an EVA to North Ridge, with Mathurin. Their goal was to find checkpoints with the help of a map they drew yesterday, based on a 2D map of the site. Léa was HabCom during the EVA, simultaneously processing some astrophotography taken by the robotic observatory during the night. Listening in with an EVA radio, Léa could know how many checkpoints the girls had found in real time. Léa and I were the 3D map team during the last EVA, so we were carefully following their performance! And we must admit that they did a much better job than us… They found all the checkpoints in record time! They had a lot of fun finding checkpoints chosen by Yves, Mathurin and Leo at the beginning of the week. They came back to the Hab very happy with their performance and with the will to do it again next week. And wouldn’t you know it, the three boys will perform another EVA Monday at Candor Chasma, a different site, and start another iteration of the experiment. This time, Léa and I will have the 2D map and Lise and Marie the 3D one. This will enable us to compare gaps in performance, and to know if they come from the team constitution or from the different maps!

The afternoon was productive for the entire Crew! Yves and Mathurin processed data from the photogrammetry EVA of the morning. Meanwhile, Leo did some video editing for the mid-rotation video. As the name indicates, this video may be posted in the following days, because we are close to the mission’s mid-point! Marie and Léa performed an EchoFinder session. They consolidated what we fixed yesterday, in order to get all the devices connected well together, and so the software could work better. After that, Léa worked on an outreach article about the effect life in space can have on the human body, which she nearly finished! During the afternoon, I was busy sorting the pictures of the EVA, and following each member of the Crew in their activities to take pictures, and to know what they’re doing, so I can account for the day in this report!

Sols are passing quickly, and we are close to the mission’s midpoint. On the one hand, we feel like we have been living in the station for a long time, but on the other hand, time flies, because we’re working on a great many experiments and studies! Today, we also noticed that we spent the first day of March on Mars!

SOL 9: Draw me a mountain!

«Thus you can imagine my amazement, at sunrise, when I was awakened by an odd little voice. It said: "If you please–draw me a sheep!"

"What!"

"Draw me a sheep!" » – The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The day started with a sports session, as usual. But this time, the workout was more focused on stretching. Indeed, after more than a week of intensive sports, we were glad to have a more restful session to stretch our muscles!

During the morning, Mathurin, our GreenHab Officer, spent a lot of time in the greenhouse. He goes to the GreenHab various times during the day to water, but this morning he spent time planting new plants, and moving the ones that had not enough space to grow well. For example, he planted basil because we like to add some in our dehydrated food! Every Crew member likes to go with Mathurin to the GreenHab from time to time: it is the brighter module of the station. Contrary to other modules, the GreenHab’s walls are kind of transparent, so sun rays filter through them. It is very hot sometimes in there, but the sensations remind us of Earth! Plus, being surrounded by plants and greens is very pleasant in our confined environment! During this time in the Hab, Yves continued working on the 3D maps for the photogrammetry EVAs of the week, while Léa and Marie started writing outreach articles about space missions. Lise was busy collecting our sensors’ data, it is very long: indeed, there is about 8 Go of data per Crew member just for the first week of the mission! For me, with Leo, we went through the different modules to shoot videos, in which each Crew member presents a part of the station.

For lunch, we had again a MELiSSA lunch: leek muffins! While they were cooking them, Lise and Leo did not find any muffin tin, so they made them with aluminum foil. But finally, during the afternoon, Lise was baking cookies and Yves opened a drawer below the oven and… found a muffin tin! This problem enabled us to learn that the Crew knows how to adapt and find solutions!

At the end of the afternoon, Léa and I prepared our EVA for tomorrow. With the 3D map generated thanks to photogrammetry, we identified checkpoints we will have to find tomorrow. In 45 minutes, we took notes, drew the landscape, and thought about our itinerary. The purpose is to compare our performances with the ones of another team, Marie and Lise. They will have to find the same checkpoints with a 2D map in a future EVA!

SOL 6 : A One in a Hundred Crew

“You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.” – The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

This morning, waking up was rough for everyone, tiredness started to appear within the Crew! But everything works well, Lise prepared a core muscles workout session to refuel our energy for the day. Yves, Marie, and Lise performed an EVA this morning. Their goal was to solve the field mill’s problems we had during the last EVA, and to change atmospheric instrument’s batteries. Thanks to Crew members, the field mill is now fixed, but it is not collecting data yet. It will be a mission for the next EVA Crew, we already have an idea of how to launch it! From the outside, Marie also set down the drone in front of the Science Dome’s window. That way, when they were out in the Martian atmosphere, Mathurin was following them, piloting the drone from the inside of the Science Dome. This way, he could capture some images of Crew members on EVA and test the drone’s photogrammetry settings. Thanks to drone’s taken photos, we can generate 3D maps of the desert. It will be useful for future EVAs next week, in which photogrammetry will be the main purpose!

Before lunch, a lot of Crew members were working together in the Hab, while Yves was teaching me on how to use the EchoFinder tool, so that I could perform ultrasounds on Marie. We enjoyed once again a MELiSSA meal for lunch: a pasta gratin with vegetables and béchamel. These meals have a huge positive impact on the Crew’s mood, and as Leo said: “We eat better on Mars than we do on Earth!”. After lunch, everyone took a break. Some Crew members tried to rest by taking a nap, others read. This break at the beginning of the afternoon enabled us to be more efficient during the rest of the day.

In fact this afternoon, Yves and Mathurin started to work on photogrammetry, thanks to the drone’s taken images of the morning. They generated maps and located the places they want to perform photogrammetry for the next EVAs. With these 3D maps and regular 2D maps, we will compare performances of two teams which will try to find checkpoints. During this time, Leo helped Lise to set up some of the “anchors” which record our position for the Orbital Architecture experiment. They are spread all around the station, and linked to the sensors we wear, but some of them seemed to malfunction. In the Upper Deck, Léa read documentation to train herself on astrophotography. Indeed, her astronomy project was about the Sun, but the station’s solar observatory is damaged and not in service… She works a lot to be able to use the other observatory and to take pictures of celestial objects. At the end of the day, we allowed ourselves to take a break to end our last day of the week working on scientific experiments. Is it during these breaks that we feel how much our Crew is united and get along well together. Each one of us is very happy to spend time with the Crew, and we share a lot of activities and talks. This makes our life in the station very pleasant and isolation less difficult to endure!

SOL 7: “Carpe Diem”

“It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

Today it’s Sunday at the MDRS! The day started a bit later than usual: we woke up at 8:30 instead of 6:45! The daily workout session was longer too: we enjoyed a one-hour session with lots of cardio exercises, to get us in shape for the day. For breakfast, Mathurin and Yves cooked pancakes for the Crew. They were delicious, and we ate so many of them with maple syrup that we decided to avoid lunch and just have brunch!

Then, Sunday means clean-up! Since we arrived at the station, we had not taken the time to fully clean the Hab. This morning, we cleaned up all the tables, countertops, and cooking utensils. We keep a close watch on our water consumption every day, and we are very careful not to waste water, even during cleaning. Léa vacuumed, after struggling to make it work. After a week, the floor was dirty… But now, everything is clean and well tidied up for next week, and this has given the Crew a real boost! Finally, we erased the white bord we used to track our daily task, now that they’re implemented in the AMI interface. That way, we could write quotes on it, like “Carpe Diem”!

During the afternoon, we enjoyed some downtime, not forgetting some essential tasks: Yves collected data for all the experiments we performed during the week, and some Crew members took cognitive tests for the Orbital Architecture experiment. But we made sure everyone was well rested, whether it was reading, or knitting, or crocheting, or making a puzzle and listening to music… The mood is great for this first Sunday on Mars!

SOL 8: Who run the Hab? Girls!

« The boy felt jealous of the freedom of the wind, and saw that he could have the same freedom. There was nothing to hold him back except himself. » – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

This morning the first EVA of photogrammetry took place. Particularity: it was a 100% masculine EVA! All the boys went out on the Martian atmosphere, letting the Hab free for the four girls of the Crew. Outside, Mathurin piloted the drone and took photos of North Ridge with it, to later generate a 3D map of the site during the data handling session that they did this afternoon. Winds blew this morning; the drone could hardly take off. As the HabCom of the EVA, I told them information every 10 minutes about wind speed thanks to our weather station, installed during a previous EVA. In the Hab, girls were working on experiments: Marie was dealing with the AMI interface, Léa kept training on astrophotography, Lise watered the GreenHab’s plants while Mathurin was out of the station and, as I said, I was HabCom for the boy’s EVA. Despite it all, we were very happy to get the Crew reunited at the end of the morning.

During the afternoon, Yves finished teaching the Crew about the EchoFinder experiment, by teaching Leo and Léa. Now, everyone can perform ultrasounds on Marie and knows how to use the experiment’s software. At each session, we are searching for five organs, like the carotid for example, helped by augmented reality and artificial intelligence to take good quality images of the organs. Operators of the experiment take notes about remarks they want to share with the researchers for them to perfect the software, in order for it to be used one day during space missions.

Finally, Lise retrieved last week’s data for the Orbital Architecture experiment. This experiment, which was brought to the ISS three weeks before the beginning of our mission, aims to study the impact of the station’s architecture and environment on the analog astronauts. We perform three cognitive assessments per Crew member per week in different modules, we wear location tracking sensors and polars to measure our heart rate. The results of the tests, of the location tracking sensors, and of questionnaires that we fill enable the researcher from the University of KTH to analyze our performances!

SOL 3: Story of an EVA

“He had decided, the night before, that he would be as much an adventurer as the ones he had admired in books.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

In the morning of Sol 3, The ambient concentration is almost palpable. We know that today, we’ll have a lot of work: we are going out on an EVA in the Martian atmosphere to deploy the atmospheric instruments. The experiment will provide data to researchers about the atmosphere, concentration and size of particles in the air, and electric field. The instruments are fragile and difficult to build. This is a high stakes EVA. We gather in the Upper Deck. The seven of us are seated around the table, listening to Léa, the EVA leader. She sent an EVA request yesterday during our Coms Window, approved by Mission Support. She takes us through every step of the EVA. Leo and I, who are part of the EVA Crew, are listening carefully to what we’ll have to do. Mathurin will be our HabCom: he’ll stay in the station, and we will be communicating with him throughout the EVA to make sure we don’t forget any steps of the deployment. Lise, Yves and Marie are here too, their help might be useful in case a problem occurs.

Once the explanations are understood by everybody, we go down to the Lower Deck. The EVA starts in 30 minutes, and we must equip three astronauts. We’re going to use Suits number 2,5 and 6. They are checked to see if there are no and if they are powered. This morning, after our daily sport session, we decided to wear warm and comfortable clothes. Over them, we put on our black space suits, protecting us from the hostile Martian atmosphere. We are helped by the rest of the crew to get equipped. There are a lot of steps, they are all very important: we want to be as protected as possible outside of our base. Marie is helping me put on my harness, useful to store and maintain a radio and a location tracker. On my right, I see that Yves has already equipped Léa with her full COMS kit. Each Crew member has one kit, containing all the necessary equipment to communicate while being on an EVA. It has a radio, a microphone, a headband to keep the microphone in place, and a wipe to clean our helmets. Nearby, Lise has just finished equipping Leo with Suit 5, well secured and resembling a large backpack, and she’s putting his helmet on just after cleaning it. When it is well adjusted, she closes the helmet. We are all three equipped the same way, a pair of gloves hermetically closing our equipment for the next three hours. Mathurin and the three astronauts test communications, and Mathurin informs Mission Support of the beginning of the EVA; the countdown has officially started.

Even though we’re aware of the importance of the mission and well-focused to succeed, the mood is still joyful. With the first aid kit, water and all the required equipment, we’re heading towards the airlock. We are happy to perform this EVA together, after such a long preparation. We’re communicating with our HabCom through radio, in English. After five minutes of depressurization, we can go out and tread the Martian soil. We drive slowly with two rovers, loaded with the atmospheric instruments, to go to the chosen deployment site.

Once we arrive on the site, we take out all the equipment from the trunk of the rovers. There are two instruments, and a lot of steps to deploy each one. Leo and Léa are screwing the supporting rods together, I am maintaining the mast. We spend 30 minutes on the first screw. With gloves and suits, everything is slower and harder, small pieces kept falling from our hands. For the next screws, we are a bit faster. The first instrument, Mega Ares, is deployed. We try to sink fixations in the ground, to make Mega Ares resistant to Martian winds. But we have a problem: Martian soil is way harder than we thought… At each step, we keep the HabCom informed of what we’re doing. Then, when the supporting rods are finally in place, we move towards the second instrument, LOAC. This time, we just have to fix it to the ground, but it is not working well… We choose to prevent LOAC from falling thanks to rocks that we found nearby. Everything seems well attached, we make some tests on the instruments, and everything is nominal. We take a picture to send to researchers during the COMMS window. We are very happy, the pressure starts to slowly alleviate. We had no problems, or few, to which we found solutions thanks to good teamwork. We drive back with our rovers towards the station.

During the five minutes of the recompression in the airlock, I smile behind my helmet, proud and glad of how well the EVA went. We join the rest of the Crew, waiting impatiently on the other side of the airlock door. They all have a huge smile on their faces, and they are welcoming us back with a little bit of food and water, we appreciate it a lot. They help us to take off our equipment, we eat. This EVA was long and challenging, with precise and technical actions to perform. We are exhausted but we laugh while recounting our misadventures. We debrief all together while eating a ratatouille cooked for lunch. Proud, happy, relieved: the day can continue with calmer activities, like the successful setup of the AMI platform!