Category: Sol Summary

Crew 206 March 11th 2019
Sol 15

Summary Title : Weather Station round 2

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : We woke up still tired this morning, but
motivated to finish the mission as best we could. We continued filming a
lot of different scenes all day, this kind of changes our everyday
experience. This morning’s EVA was a success : we installed the weather
station and the LOAC again, but we anchored the base much more strongly
to the ground, it seems perfectly aligned, and we are getting the data.
This has also ended the 4 days of interior measurements, we are eager to
see the results of air quality we are breathing. This afternoon we
continued the TELEOP sessions, everything is running fine and we are not
encountering issues anymore. It feels good to finally have a working
set-sup after so much work. It’s also our last VR week, we are seeing
some pretty footage for the last time.

Look ahead plan : Tomorrow we will change the LOAC battery to make sure
it doesn’t turn off, we will try to visit white rock canyon and we will
pursue our experiments.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Quite sunny until 4:30 pm, Cloudy after that

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : LOAC and weather station installation

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Request, EVA
Report

Support Requested : None

Crew 206 March 10th 2019 Sol 14

Summary Title : Light (and rest) saving day

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : Today was our rest day, se didn’t put any alarms
for waking up, with the day light saving hour change we woke up around
09-10:00 am to have breakfast. It feels really good to take a day off
and not follow any schedule. We spent most of the day playing cards and
talking, we saw a funny stupid movie before lunch. We will be much more
efficient and motivated tomorrow and the rest of the day. As every day
we had our debating time, that was about humour and its impacts on the
society for today.

Our Crew writer explained us his plan for our Crew post mission video
and we have started the shootings today.

Look ahead plan : This week we have to plan an EVA to bring the LOAC out
of the station again, we have gathered enough data inside the station.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Cloudy all day with a few sunshines

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : None

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Request

Support Requested : None

Crew 206 March 9th, 2019
Sol 13

Summary Title: TELEOP catch-up

Author: Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status: All nominal

Sol Activity Summary: It is getting harder and harder for me to wake up in the morning, but I still stick to the morning routine, as all of the crew does. Today is the last working day of our week, and we worked well.

The EVA went beautifully. We explored the east and west Kissing Camels ridges and took great pictures. The EVA was also meant to continue the tests of our prototype simulation space suit. The little upgrades that were made improved the suit quite a bit: it was less hard to carry, ventilation and sun protection worked better and the battery lasted more than long enough for the whole EVA.

This afternoon also saw the completion of the TELEOP second week: we managed to gather additional data to catch up on the sessions that were missed, and I haven’t encountered any additional issues with the physical rover (great difference with last year’s sessions). We ended this work week with the VR session, that also allowed us to talk about the videos we had seen, and opinions differ regarding what video was preferred.

Look ahead plan: Tomorrow will be a rest day, we will still have to
work on our rotation video and on a few experiments, but it will be
calmer than today.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Cloudy all day with some sunshine.

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : Kissing Camels

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Report

Support Requested : None

Crew 206 March 8th 2019
Sol 12

Summary Title :

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : Since the begining of the week we are waking up
one or two minutes later every day, tomorrow we will have to get back in
track ! We still do our workout sessions as seriously as the first day
though, our scores have greatly increased. With the lack of an EVA we
decided to clean the Hab again, the dust settles everywhere so quickly
that it’s a necessity. We also had some long discussions on the methods
we use to measure the water consuption of flushes, we have to continue
averaging the water volume over many toilet flushes. For lunch we
prepared some pizzas, we ate a wonderfull lunch that made us all happy.
After that we played some Tarot, a popular french card game. In the
afternoon there was a TELEOP session, it worked fine, this experiment is
back on track ! As planned, there was also a VR session, we are
continuing to gather data.

Look ahead plan : We hope to go on EVA tomorrow but the weather doesn’t
seem promising, so we might just continue our indoor experiments in the
next days.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Cloudy all day with a few sunshines

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : None

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Request is
weather allows it

Support Requested : None

Crew 206 March 7th 2019
Sol 11

Summary Title : Preparing for the Gale force winds

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : Waking up is becoming harder and harder for me, even if I sleep as much as before. Some of us sleep better and some of us sleep worse than usual, confinement and isolation have different effects on different people. We are nonetheless sticking to our strict daily routine : wake up at 07:00 am, sport and breakfast. The EVA’s purpose was to asses the damage on the weather station (that tipped over yesterday due to the winds) and the LOAC, and to dismantle the instruments to bring them back to the Hab. The weather cock on the station broke, but the sensor is still operationnal. The rest of the equipment is intact. For the rest of the EVA the team attached more tightly all the tarps that cover the tunnels.
Today is Cerise’s birthday, so the crew prepared a very nice lunch, and Cerise prepared a great chocolate cake. We had a very nice time. In the afternoon we were able to run a digital TELEOP session with the new computer station we received, so we are now collecting twice as much data, things all finaly looking good for TELEOP. The wind is sporadically blowing hard on the station, we hope that it won’t be too bad in the next few days.

Look ahead plan : Almost all our experiments are running fine, except the weather station. We will take advantage of the fact that the LOAC is inside to measure the quality of the air we breathe.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Sunny between 11 am and 12 am, Cloudy for the rest of the day

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : LOAC and weather station dismantling

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Report, EVA Request

Support Requested : Cooking whip and pressurized air can

Crew 206 March 6th 2019
Sol 10

Summary Title : Windy day

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : We got up a little after 07:00 am to begin the work out. The sun wasn’t shining this morning, but we were feeling great. At 09:00 am we were almost ready for EVA, the new LOAC battery was fully charged. Outside the ground was pretty dry, we went straight to the weather station to do a quick maintenance. After that we went north instead of going to kissing camels, CNN’s filming crew was still arriving, so we didn’t want to hold anyone up. After 10 minutes of driving we stopped to start our exploration. We discovered that the camera had no SD card, so we couldn’t take any pictures. We walked east towards a canyon that wasn’t noted on the map. After a little walking it started raining lightly, so by precaution we decided to go back to the rovers in case the rain didn’t stop, but after 4-5 minutes it did stop. We took the rovers to go to reservoir dam, to explore it. When the CNN filming crew left the Hab we went back to the Hab. During that time the two others were in the science dome. This afternoon I was interviewed by CNN, the rest of the crew worked on their experiments. In the afternoon the wind started to go up a lot, we noticed that it had tiped over the weather station and the LOAC, we need to fix it quickly.

Look ahead plan : We hope to be able to go on EVA tomorrow to fix the LOAC, but the weather doesn’t look like it wants us to go out.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Cloudy all day, high winds in the afternoon

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : LOAC maintenance and Reservoir Dam exploration

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Report, EVA
Request, Science Report

Support Requested : Tissues

Crew 206 March 6th 2019
Sol 10

Summary Title : Windy day

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : We got up a little after 07:00 am to begin the work out. The sun wasn’t shining this morning, but we were feeling great. At 09:00 am we were almost ready for EVA, the new LOAC battery was fully charged. Outside the ground was pretty dry, we went straight to the weather station to do a quick maintenance. After that we went north instead of going to kissing camels, The filming crew was still arriving, so we didn’t want to delay anyone. After 10 minutes of driving we stopped to start our exploration. We discovered that the camera had no SD card, so we couldn’t take any pictures. We walked east towards a canyon that wasn’t noted on the map. After a little walking it started raining lightly, so by precaution we decided to go back to the rovers in case the rain didn’t stop, but after 4-5 minutes it did stop. We took the rovers to go to reservoir dam, to explore it. When the CNN filming crew left the Hab we went back to the Hab. During that time the two others were in the science dome. This afternoon I was interviewed by CNN, the rest of the crew worked on their experiments. In the afternoon the wind started to go up a lot, we noticed that it had tipped over the weather station and the LOAC, we need to fix it quickly.

Look ahead plan : We hope to be able to go on EVA tomorrow to fix the LOAC, but the weather doesn’t look like it wants us to go out.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Cloudy all day, high winds in the afternoon

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : LOAC maintenance and Reservoir Dam exploration

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Report, EVA
Request, Science Report

Support Requested : Tissues

Crew 206 March 5th 2019
Sol 9

Summary Title : Sleepy Commanders

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : Yesterday night we went to the observatory to take a look at the sky and take some pictures. There was almost no clouds, and the air was pretty clear. I had an issue with my camera lens, so I only took a couple nice pictures. As usual everyone got out of bed at 07:00 am for the daily workout. It’s still as hard, even if we’re getting used to it. After that we ate breakfast and prepared for the EVA. We went to attach a rain protection to the LOAC. It’s very simple, probably not as effective as I’d wish, but it’s good enough for now. After that we went up to the Hab ridge. The view is still as impressive and beautiful, even after a year. I took some great pictures. Cerise felt sick this morning, so she didn’t go on the EVA, and took advantage of this time to finish the Mars puzzle (unfortunately there is 3 missing pieces). After lunch, 5 of us took a long nap. It didn’t help me that much, I’m feeling sleepy since then and Aurélien, our XO, feels also quite sleepy. I haven’t made some progress on TELEOP today, our extra charger is supposed to arrive tomorrow. At least I have a set-up that works, I’m gathering a part of the data I planned on gathering. After that is was a quiet day.

Look ahead plan : We are now planning all our filming sessions for the mission video, it will take some time and some work, but it should look good !

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Sunny in the morning, Cloudy in the afternoon

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : LOAC maintenance and Hab Ridge exploration

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Report, EVA Request

Support Requested : None

Crew 206 March 4th 2019
Sol 8

Summary Title : Executive Birthday

Author : Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status : All nominal

Sol Activity Summary : At 07:00 am everyone got out of bed easily and with energy. The 3 of us that recorded our workout scores (as planned, the 3 others will record their scores tomorrow) beat last week’s scores. The ground was too humid to go on EVA, so we had to change a few activities on the planning. The EVA was moved to the afternoon, and the TELEOP session was moved to tomorrow. In the morning we weren’t sure that we would be able to go on EVA. In the morning we worked on our expriments and prepared a nice lunch for Aurélien’s Birthday (our executive officer). Around 14:00, the afternoon EVA was approved, and Gaspard, the EVA leader, took the first step outside on a dry ground. The EVA team managed to do everything that was planned on the request. We made some bread in the afternoon. We also learned that they had been a earthquake between 10 am and 11 am, but no one noticed anything. The crew is still feeling well and motivated, but the routine has definitely settled.

Look ahead plan : Tomorrow will be a usual day, we hope to make some progress on TELEOP.

Anomalies in work : None

Weather : Partly sunny in the morning, sunny in the afternoon

Crew physical status : Fine

EVA : LOAC maintenance and simulated space suit in the afternoon

Reports to be filed : GreenHab, Journalist, Operation, EVA Report, EVA Request

Support Requested : Our Astronomer would really like some sun and a clear sky.

Crew 206 March 3rd 2019

Sol 7

Summary Title: Monopoly afternoon

Author: Jeremy Auclair

Mission Status: All nominal

Sol Activity Summary: This morning there was no wake up alarms, but we all got up before 09:00 am. We ate pancakes and started looking for some fun games to play. The best one we found was Monopoly Deal, it’s simple, fast and fun, and we loved it. While some of us started working on the Mars puzzle in the morning, the rest of us prepared some bread and a "gratin dauphinois" (potatoes cooked in cream and cheese, baked in the oven). We ate really well, great for crew morale! The bread also looks great, we kept it for dinner. We played Monopoly a good part of the afternoon, Cerise made some good progress on the puzzle, and after that we read a bit and worked on our reports. To sum up it was a calm day which we really enjoyed!

Look ahead plan: Tomorrow we hope we will be able to go on EVA to finally test the prototype space suit. I also hope that I will make some progress on TELEOP.

Anomalies in work: None

Weather: Sunny in the morning, cloudy and rainy in the afternoon.

Crew physical status: Fine

EVA: None

Reports to be filed: GreenHab, Journalist, Operation

Support Requested: None