Category: Sol Summary

Crew 221 Sol Summary Report 14Feb-2020

Sol:12

Summary Title: Preparation to fly to Earth

Author’s name: Maria Grulich, M.Sc.

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Today is Valentine’s day on Earth and also the last day for us on Mars. Yesterday the team played “King Mao” , a card game from Crew GreenHab Officer J. Todd and the team loved a lot, it is about figuring out rules that only one person knows, that is “King Mao”!

The crew woke up for the last time on Mars and celebrated it with scrambled eggs prepared again from crew journalist H. Kalucha. They were delicious!

After a great breakfast crew commander M.Grulich and crew HSO R. Alshammari prepared for the last EVA on Mars to the Moons! The EVA preparation went well and also the whole EVA was a complete success. They installed the antenna again in the field on top of a little hill. The rover was used in two different locations collecting very interesting samples as the surface was white and underneath red. The team also used acid to see if there are some carbonate components but no luck.

After the EVA was completed, the team had lunch and prepared some outreach videos to be shown back in our countries as well as doing last soil testing and checking on the microbiology samples.

On our last evening on Mars we will have a Valentine’s Day gift exchange as we draw secretly names of the crew members and prepared a Valentines gift! The crew commander also prepared a small surprise for the crew… See you back on Earth! It was a great two weeks and we achieved almost all our objectives and Mars treated us well! Until the next time… Ad Astra!

Anomalies in work: None

Update mouse in hab: no new mouse caught

Weather: sunny light winds

Crew Physical Status: Crew feeling good

Reports to be filed:

Sol Summary

Photo Report

Operations Report

Journalist Report

GreenHab Report

EVA Report 14

Support Requested: None

Crew 221 Sol Summary Report 15Feb-2020

Sol:13

Summary Title: Touch down Earth awaits

Author’s name: Maria Grulich, M.Sc.

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Update since last Sol Summary: The team prepared the Mission summary of Crew 221 Earth2Mars, reporting about the mission and what we achieved from our original plan. Besides a few drawbacsk on the weather station and geology testing we fulfilled all our objectives.

After the work was done the team gathered together and went through our personal mission goals and our original expectations. We also asked everyone before the mission what are their special skills and after two weeks spending each minute together, they may have developed new once. After this the crew commander handed every member of the team a self-written certificate about achieving to live two weeks on Mars together at the Mars Desert Research Station and handing them the “New Horizons” Pin of the European mission of Alexander Gerst a German Astronaut as a reminder what they achieved. To finish up the Valentine’s Day we exchanged our gifts that we brought from our countries before to give to our secret Valentine! Even our seventh crew member in our heart who could not come send her gift and was very well received.

The crew went to bed the last time on Mars….

To wake up on Earth Saturday morning!

The first morning on Earth the crew commander, crew engineer, and crew Greenhab officer ran out with their pyjamas to breath fresh Earth air without an EVA suit!

Once the rest of the crew was awake, we had breakfast and get started to clean as we required all hands-on deck. After a few hours everything was cleaned and we were ready to meet crew 222 at the rock shop!

Crew 221 prepared some soup and one last time crew commander made some German bread for both crews.

Crew 221 went out for a walk to conquer the North Ridge as it has become a tradition started by crew 205 and continued by crew 219 and now 221.

The rest of the time was spent to train crew 222. The official handover was done at 4:30pm!

Both crews will be heading to Stan’s for hamburgers at 6:00pm before our last time sleeping in our crew quarters and leaving the station tomorrow at 8:00am!

Crew 221 signing off…

Anomalies in work: None

Update mouse in hab: no new mouse caught

Weather: morning cloudy light winds, afternoon partially sunny light winds

Crew Physical Status: Crew feeling good

Reports to be filed:

Sol Summary

Photo Report

Operations Report

Commander Report

GreenHab Report

Support Requested: None

Crew 221 Sol Summary Report 13Feb-2020

Sol:11

Summary Title: Real Mars Experience

Author’s name: Maria Grulich, M.Sc.

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Today the crew woke up and had pancakes prepared by the crew commander and with the olive oil we got from the last supply mission from Earth. Finally, they do not stick to the pan anymore and were delicious!

In the morning we were under the gun to get the robot ready as there were hookups with the software. All bugs were solved by 13:00, leaving one hour before the EVA.

The girls EVA team, containing the crew commander M.Grulich, crew journalist H. Kalucha and crew GreenHab Officer J. Todd who mainly worked on the robot, got ready for the EVA. They decided to test the robot just in front of the hab door to make sure it was working. It did but the wheels came loose, and it had to be fixed in the field. This was a real challenge, requesting several tools from the team support inside the hab.

Once all issues were fixed the EVA team headed for the rover but realized that Spirit was not plugged in. After radio communication, it was decided to leave one team member at the hab and go with permission with two crew members on Curiosity. Crew commander and crew GreenHab officer drove to Steambed Connector and walked to Candor Chasma and tested the robot successfully in a more challenging environment.

Once back the team had a debrief discussing the communication and confusion of information that lead to one person not joining the EVA mission and realized that any piece of information from mission support should and shall in the future be reviewed and read in more detail, as we cannot rely on mission support on Mars.

The evening was spent with a lovely salad prepared by crew HSO Rawan Alshammari and will be concluded with a games night.

Anomalies in work: None

Update mouse in hab: no new mice caught

Weather: sunny light winds

Crew Physical Status: Crew some sore throat, but seems to improve

Reports to be filed:

Sol Summary
Photo Report
Operations Report
Journalist Report
GreenHab Report
EVA Request
EVA Report 13

Support Requested: None

Crew 221 Sol Summary Report 12Feb-2020

Sol:10

Summary Title: Robot vs Human

Author’s name: Maria Grulich, M.Sc.

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Update since last Sol summary: The crew finally managed to have one games night which made everyone happy. Still in the wish list – movie night and dance night.

Today we reconvened for breakfast, enjoying good conversations before preparing for our only EVA of the day!

Crew commander M. Grulich, Crew Journalist H. Kalucha and Crew Greenhab Officer J. Todd went out for an EVA to install the antenna of the crew engineer.

The antenna was installed in two different places without an issue showing that such an antenna could be deployed on Mars! On the way back, the EVA team lost Fuzz, our mascot, and had to go back and rescue him! He feels like a real team member right now and the crew was scared for a second and was glad when he was found again. The team also recorded some shoots for a dance video on the EVA that was also continued in the hab: stay tuned!

After the EVA the team took a little break before heading into the robot project which needed an operation on its heart, since the raspberry pi seemed to not have been configured appropriately. The robot had to be disassembled partially to reach the LAN cable which tested the patience of Crew Journalist, the crew commander and Crew Greenhab officer. After almost giving up and letting the robot win, Crew Engineer L. Monge came to the rescue with his external monitor and keyboard as the issue was that the country and wifi was not configured.

Finally, the team saw some progress. The second batch of the microbiology samples also showed sign of microbes.

Tonight, we will have the last cultural night, Germany, and the crew commander prepared “Knödel mit Soße” and brought the most famous drink of Germany… “Apfelsaftschorle” which is apple juice with gas, a much-loved drink in Germany besides beer! Also, the crew will experience the Cologne Catherdal with VR glasses.

Anomalies in work: None

Update mouse in hab: no new mouse caught

Weather: sunny light winds

Crew Physical Status: Crew with knee issues is feeling better, some crew members experience worsened sore throats

Reports to be filed:

Sol Summary

Photo Report

Operations Report

Journalist Report

GreenHab Report

EVA Request

EVA Report 11

Journalist Report

Support Requested: None

Sol:8

Summary Title: Wish List and Microbiology Sample Catalogue

Author’s name: Maria Grulich, M.Sc.

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Update since last Sol summary: The crew had a lovely Canadian/Indian Cultural night, learning about two cultures and getting our names written in Hindi.

Today we woke up and wrote our wish list for the activities we would love to do with our remaining time on Mars. Number one is movie night, games night and salsa night as we keep on postponing it due to the high number of projects we would like to achieve. We still have 4 days and only one cultural night left.

The first EVA in the morning left just 15 min late as one of the wishes from the commander was to take the EVA checklists more seriously. Still the EVA Support team forgot to put a camera in the airlock, which caused the EVA team to do the depressurization twice.

Once on the road, the EVA team managed to install the antenna on the desired location and achieved all their objectives. The rest of the crew was working on finishing the robot and managed to see it turning on for the first time. Unfortunately, the crew could not manage to connect to the robot and has to troubleshoot further tomorrow. For lunch, the team had tortilla bowls with fresh mung bean sprouts that the crew grew over the last couple of days. Mung beans are a powerhouse of vitamins such as A,B,C and E as well as minerals calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorous. It also contains zinc, chromium, iron and they taste very fresh and like peas, which is great for Martians in confined space.

Also, today the inherited Kambucha batch of crew 220 should be ready to be drunk by the crew. A first try will be done tomorrow.

During the afternoon, the EVA team got delayed one hour as the crew only had four EVA radios and two of them had been used before and were not recharged in time. In addition, the crew made a mistake in the EVA window and so when the team was finally ready to go, the team was informed that the EVA window is already over. Therefore, the EVA was canceled.

The free time was used to take four crew members’ profile pictures, work on the sample catalogue of the microbiology samples and identify the bacteria based on their appearance such as, form, elevation, surface, opacity and color. The samples from February 3rd were then discarded to avoid any bad bacteria growth. As we are working on fulfilling our wish list, we will have a games night tonight, after a lovely dinner with fresh salad and cucumber from the Greenhab harvested by J. Todd!

Ad Astra!

Anomalies in work: None

Update mouse in hab: Mouse trab reinstalled no new mouse caught

Weather: sunny no winds

Crew Physical Status: Crew status with signs of flu feel better, also crew with knee issues is feeling better.

Reports to be filed:

Sol Summary

Photo Report

Operations Report

GreenHab Report

Science Report

Astronomy Report

EVA Request

EVA Report 10

Journalist Report

Support Requested: None

Crew 221 Sol Summary Report 10Feb-2020

Sol:8

Summary Title: EVAs and Kim’s Release

Author’s name: Maria Grulich, M.Sc.

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Update since last Sol summary: The crew had an astronomy lesson last night by crew astronomer G. Alotaibi, so all other crew members had a chance to ask questions and learn about it which was great!

This morning Crew Engineer L. Monge and Crew Commander M. Grulich went up the Hab Ridge road towards Hab Ridge North to get eight more microbiology samples as well as investigate how two different EVA teams with the same route and the same objective will perform.

The morning EVA already struggled to find the Hab Ridge road but managed after two extra little hill hikes. The team found great samples of stones with letch, several stratospheric layers and gryphaea at the top of Hab Ridge Road North, supporting the theory that Mars once hosted liquid water. We already know there are microbes living in the soil from the already incubated samples showing bacteria and fungi growth. Meanwhile, H.Kalucha and J. Todd worked on the robot and almost finished it, which just leaves the programming to be done tomorrow.

In the lunch break between the two EVA’s, we found out that we actually caught our little Martian and we called the rodent Kim and got permission to release him at Cowboys Corner at the end of EVA 9.

The second EVA of the day also had an issue finding the road, but still managed to find it and also collected 8 samples which will be processed today. Crew Commander prepared nutrient agar during the second EVA while being support lead to finish all samples by today to leave enough time for the incubation.

Once the second EVA team came back, they took the rovers to release Kim. The dinner was Rajma and Jalapeño Poppers by crew journalist H. Kalucha in preparation for Canadian/Indian Cultural night.

Look Ahead Plan: Planning of Operation EVAs, last microbiology sample preparation for the incubation and Canadian Cultural night.

Anomalies in work: None

Update mouse in hab: Caught Kim. We will set up the trap again to see if there is another one.

Weather: sunny partially cloudy in the afternoon light wind in the morning stronger wind in the afternoon

Crew Physical Status: Crew team members with signs of flu doing better, crew member with knee issues worsened after EVA

Reports to be filed:

Sol Summary

Photo Report

Operations Report

GreenHab Report

Science Report

Astronomy Report

EVA Request

EVA Report 8 and 9

Journalist Report

Support Requested: Raspberries same as yesterday Olive Oil from last time and White Vinegar if possible

Crew 221 Sol Summary Report 09Feb-2020

Sol:7

Summary Title:

Author’s name: Maria Grulich, M.Sc.

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Update since last Sol summary: The crew had a lovely cultural night of Costa Rica with crew engineer L. Monge. The food he prepared was delicious and he even brought everyone a traditional hat and scarf from his country. The team learned a lot and is planning on a team meeting in Costa Rica once we return to Earth one day.

Today the crew is half way through rotation and therefore took the liberty to sleep one hour more and started its day with delicious scrambled eggs prepared by crew journalist H. Kalucha.

After breakfast, the team sat together, reviewing their performance of the first week. We discussed what we enjoyed and what the team can improve on, which resulted in a 2 hours cleaning activity before each member focused on their science projects.

The microbiology team made great progress, preparing 5 new samples and taking samples from stones directly to see if more bacteria is growing. Most of the samples the team prepared showed growth of bacteria.

Crew engineer L. Monge made good progress on his antenna project, which shall be installed in the field the coming weeks. The crew astronomer G. Alotaibi is still not satisfied with his images and will keep working on it.

As part of the team feels unwell, crew 221 was not on their best performance today and hopes that it will make better progress over the next few days and also should start to do videos for outreach.

Look Ahead Plan: Sports Session, Meditation Session, Planning of Operation EVAs, last microbiology sample collection

Anomalies in work: None

Update mouse in hab: still no joy in catching it.

Weather: cloudy during the day, partially cloudy during the evening light winds

Crew Physical Status: two crew members showing signs of the flu, one crew member injured knee

Reports to be filed:

Sol Summary

Photo Report

Operations Report

GreenHab Report

Science Report

Astronomy Report

EVA Request

HSO Report

Support Requested: Olive Oil, distilled white vinegar

Crew 221 Sol Summary Report 09Feb-2020

Sol:7

Summary Title:

Author’s name: Maria Grulich, M.Sc.

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Update since last Sol summary: The crew had a lovely cultural night of Costa Rica with crew engineer L. Monge. The food he prepared was delicious and he even brought everyone a traditional hat and scarf from his country. The team learned a lot and is planning on a team meeting in Costa Rica once we return to Earth one day.

Today the crew is half way through rotation and therefore took the liberty to sleep one hour more and started its day with delicious scrambled eggs prepared by crew journalist H. Kalucha.

After breakfast, the team sat together, reviewing their performance of the first week. We discussed what we enjoyed and what the team can improve on, which resulted in a 2 hours cleaning activity before each member focused on their science projects.

The microbiology team made great progress, preparing 5 new samples and taking samples from stones directly to see if more bacteria is growing. Most of the samples the team prepared showed growth of bacteria.

Crew engineer L. Monge made good progress on his antenna project, which shall be installed in the field the coming weeks. The crew astronomer G. Alotaibi is still not satisfied with his images and will keep working on it.

As part of the team feels unwell, crew 221 was not on their best performance today and hopes that it will make better progress over the next few days and also should start to do videos for outreach.

Look Ahead Plan: Sports Session, Meditation Session, Planning of Operation EVAs, last microbiology sample collection

Anomalies in work: None

Update mouse in hab: still no joy in catching it.

Weather: cloudy during the day, partially cloudy during the evening light winds

Crew Physical Status: two crew members showing signs of the flu, one crew member injured knee

Reports to be filed:

Sol Summary

Photo Report

Operations Report

GreenHab Report

Science Report

Astronomy Report

EVA Request

Support Requested: Olive Oil, distilled white vinegar

Crew 221 Sol Summary Report 08-Feb-2020

Sol:6

Summary Title: Well done…

Author’s name: Maria Grulich, M.Sc.

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Update since last Sol Summary: Crew 221 played the rover game last night from the Planetary Volatiles Lab at York University, from Crew Journalist H. Kalucha before heading to an early night’s sleep.

Today, half the crew ( J.Todd, R.Alshammari, G. Alotaibi) went on an EVA towards Candor Chasma ,walking along Stream Bed Connector. The weather was beautiful and sunny and actually, the team reported that they were a bit too warm under the space suits. They did not achieve all their objectives but identified places to use the rover on future EVAs.

The other half of the team was staying in the hab. L. Monge and H.Kalucha were working in the science dome on soil health experiments, investigating the quality of the Martian soil being used to grow black corn. They attempted to determine if the black corn and mung beans have a chance to survive.

Commander M.Grulich was working on the oven issue, reading through the manuals and communicating with mission support to find a solution to our high propane measurements in the upper deck. The hypothesis was that the oven was not configured to be used with propane gas as the gas pressure regulator showed no change in configuration. Mission support was very helpful, checking information about the oven speedily, and eventually came to the same hypothesis.

In the afternoon, Crew 221 got external support and together with Dan, configured the oven to be used for propane. Since then, the flames of the stove are way smaller and the oven does not trigger the gas detector anymore. There are also no visible flames in the oven anymore, so the issue is solved!

This afternoon, the team worked on planting mung beans in the Greenhab that hopefully sprout soon. The crew already set a jar of mung beans aside that are sprouting since today to be hopefully ready to eat within the next couple of days.

Crew Engineer worked on his antenna project and managed to receive some signals from Arizona. Last but not least the microbiology experiments seemed to show first signs of growth on the soil samples. Tonight we will have Costa Rican pinto with a mocktail and the Costa Rican Cultural night, which we are all very excited about!

Look Ahead Plan: Sports Session, Meditation Session, Cultural night Costa Rica, Preparation rover and further microbiology samples and ISRU experiments

Anomalies in work: None

Update mouse in hab: still no joy in catching it.

Weather: sunny no winds in the morning, windy in the afternoon, no precipitation

Crew Physical Status: Good

EVA: 10:00an to 13:00pm

Reports to be filed:

Sol Summary

Commander Report

Photo Report

EVA Report

Operations Report

GreenHab Report

Science Report

Astronomy Report

Support Requested: None

Crew 221 Sol Summary Report 07Feb-2020

Sol:5

Summary Title: It’s all about the Science

Author’s name: Maria Grulich, M.Sc.

Mission Status: Nominal

Sol Activity Summary:

Update since last Sol Summary: Crew 221 had another cultural night with Jessica Todd the Greenhab Officer, introducing the crew to Australian history, slang, the most dangerous and cutest animals in Australia and Vegemite, which not every crew member enjoyed. The main take-away is that in Australia everyone is your “mate” and you have to help them just like on Mars.

This morning, the commander woke up the team to prepare for another long EVA to go to Candor Chasma, which the crew expects to have been formed by water. The EVA team left at 10:00 am and had beautiful weather and the geology of Candor Chasma was very interesting. There were several stratigraphic layers, from which the crew took samples and will try to grow bacteria.

In the afternoon, the team worked on their robot under the eyes of “Fuzz” and made good progress besides one little piece broke off, which has to be glued before the team can continue and probably finish the robot tomorrow.

The samples in the incubator currently only show bacteria growth on the sample of the spacesuit before cleaning. This is also a good sign, since it means the crew is working cleanly. Today, they also produced agar, which was successful this time. All samples have been weighed and tomorrow, they will be processed to grow microbes. Tonight, there will be pizza prepared by the Crew Journalist H. Kalucha and we have a sports session with Crew Engineer L. D. Monge.

Look Ahead Plan: Sports Session, Meditation Session

Anomalies in work: None

Update mouse in hab: still no joy in catching it.

Weather: sunny no winds in the morning, windy in the afternoon, no precipitation

Crew Physical Status: Good

EVA: 10:00an to 12:50pm

Reports to be filed:

Sol Summary

Commander Report

Photo Report

EVA Report

EVA Request

Operations Report including HSO Report

GreenHab Report

Science Report

Support Requested: None