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Operations Report – December 11th

Crew 184 Operations Report  12/11/2017

SOL: 10

Name of person filing report: HuntJ

Non-nominal systems:   EVA suits #5 / #6 (see below)

Notes on non-nominal systems: 

Generator (hours run): Generator turned off at 10:05 AM, nominal response.  Turned On at 5:45pm.

Solar— SOC @ 8:00am: 100%

              SOC @ 10:05am: 100%

             SOC @ 1:30 pm: 100%

             SOC @ 5:45pm:  65% (Generator Turned On)

Diesel –  99%

Propane –  Assume 69 percent volume (Due to trends from previous days)

Ethanol Free Gasoline (5 Gallon containers for ATV) –   1.5 Gallons

Water (trailer) –   400. gallons

Water (static) –   400 gallons

Trailer to Static Pump used –  Yes

Water (loft) – Static to Loft Pump used – Yes

Water Meter:  47 gallons

Toilet tank emptied: No

ATV’s Used: None,

Oil Added: No

ATV Fuel Used:  None

# Hours the ATVs were Used today: 00:00 Hours

Notes on ATVs: No ATVs used today due to no EVA.

Deimos rover used: No

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: Yes

Sojourner rover used:  ASSIGNED TO DIRECTOR

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging:

Spirit rover used: No

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: Yes

Opportunity rover used: No

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: Yes

Curiosity rover used: No

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging: Yes

HabCar used and why, where?  NO

General notes and comments: Power is back and we’re back in sim!!

Summary of internet: 1.0 GB of Bandwidth remaining

Summary of suits and radios:

Radios: Nominal after getting charged post HAB powerdown.  Crew has primarily retired old model radios to preferentially use the new radios delivered by Mission Control.  Communication is much crisper / easier to understand on new radios, particularly when on EVA.

EVA Suits:

EVA 5: Fan does not turn on.

EVA 6: Fan does not turn on.  One of the two black straps holding the Helmet Collar in place to the suit is missing, resulting in helmet sitting incorrectly when in use and forcing the EVA crewmembers head down.

EVA 8: Right latch securing the back panel is loose. Was able to re secure by threading a  zip tie through the latch and tieing it down. After a quick vibration test (read: Shaking the suit a little) everything held steady. EVA 8 is operational at this time.

Summary of Hab operations:  Nominal

Summary of GreenHab operations: See Greenhab report

Summary of ScienceDome operations:  Currently being cleaned, Washvac assembled, Mission Control organizing Science Dome today

Summary of RAM operations: Not Operational

Summary of health and safety issues:  All Healthy

Questions, concerns and requests to Mission Support:

  1. Request more ATV Fuel. Can probably get through 2 more EVAs before exhausting remaining reserves.
  2. Burnable and Non burnable trash in airlock ready for pickup.
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GreenHab Report – December 11th

GreenHab Report

Trisha Randazzo

December 11, 2017

Environmental control: (Choose which is appropriate and explain further if needed)

Ambient (no heating or/cooling)

Ambient with window/door open

·         Outside temperature during work hours:  5 C high -1 C low

·         At 10:20, inside temperature was 40 C. Opened door to cool.

·         Keep door open for most of the day. Closed around 16:00, inside temperature was 20 C.

·         Inside temperature high 15 low 40

·         Inside humidity: 16%

Heating

·         Functioning nominally

·         Turns on at 16 C stops at 20 C

Cooling

·         Not available

Both heating and cooling

·         Nominal

Shade cloth on/off

·         On

Average temperature: (N/A until new sensor is delivered)

·         N/A

Changes to crops:  Note all emergence of seedlings, death of seedlings, etc

·         The original tomato plant is doing well!

·         Two of the four thinned tomato plants are improving!

·         The other two have no change

·         Some of the other tomato plants were starting to wilt, so moved them from the back of the hab to the door where it is cooler

·          One of the beans are starting to produce its first bean!

·         More new seedlings popped up in one of the herb gardens! Probably 20 in  that single planter now!

·         Planted more herb. One herb planter currently has two rows of the following herbs, from left to right (see picture attached to email):

o   Common Sage

o   Oregano

o   Cilantro

o   Parsley

o   Rosemary

o   Dill Weed

Daily water usage for crops:

·         Some of the soil was extra dry

Time(s) of watering for crops:

·         13:15

Morning research observations: (Currently not operational)

·         N/A

Changes to research plants:

·         N/A

Daily watering and amount of water used:

·         2.5 gallons,

Aquaponics:  (Currently not operational)

·         N/A

Narrative:  Any other information you want to share

·         Found the tin of seed packets.

o   Organized the non-empty seed packets alphabetically using cut up cardboard in that tin

o   Created an index of packets which still have seeds

o   Created an empty index of packets to preserve the individual plant care instructions.

·         The current monitor is a fire and carbon monoxide detector. Is there still a desire from mission control to install a separate carbon monoxide detector, perhaps in a different location in the greenhab? See attached pictures for picture of current alarm system.

·         Tested the fire and CO detector, system is nominal.

Support/supplies needed:

·         Mission Control Requests:

o   Request for replanting plan for tomorrow:

§  The planter box closest to the door has about 20-30 seedlings. Permission to replant them into small, individual planters so the box has more space for the rest of the herbs.

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Sol Summary – December 11th

Summary Title:  A nominal day!

Mission Status:

Today has been a thankfully nominal day!  Due to our error with comm’s yesterday and not getting our EVA request in on time we stayed at MDRS and concentrated on catching up on HAB maintenance and other activities that have fallen by the wayside in the last few days.

Today we completed our crew training on our ultrasound machine, which enables us to complete our practice runs with the Astronaut trainer developed by Dr. Sczepaniak in the next few days.

We were informed of some likely solar activity by our friendly neighborhood astronomer which led us to perform some highly anticipated solar observation this afternoon.  While we could not detect any prominence we did detect sunspots for the first time.  We are hoping the sun continues in this period of high activity and future solar observation yields some rewarding images.

We continued with our communication experiment and have noticed significant improvement among the crew in terms of numbers of errors and completion times in our building tasks.  We have assembled a lesson’s learned list of communication tips to allow quick and efficient communication among various types of time delay.  We will continue this experiment in various permutations until our mission ends, and then expect to hand over our experiment materials to make this a permanent installation at MDRS that crews can participate in as desired.

We also completed our CPR techniques experiment runs on all crew, analyzing the various ways that more force than body weight can be utilized during a CPR medical emergency.  It was interesting that most crew actually utilized different techniques during this experiment run, with us comparing notes to identify the optimal method.

Our crew has returned to our exercise routine today with all exercise equipment completely assembled.  This has proven to be a crew favorite and we also intend to donate this equipment to MDRS.  We have assembled a stationary exercise bike and a series of medicine balls for weights exercises.

The remainder of the day was filled with HAB maintenance, static water tank transfer, cleaning, some much needed love for our friendly plants in the Greenhab, and assembly of equipment delivered by Mission Control.  We are excited to finish out our mission and eager to get back out into the Martian environment with our 5th Matryoshka experiment site tomorrow.

Thanks for your assistance!

Sol Activity Summary:

  1. Matryoshka EVA Site #5
  2. ‘Bricks’ communication experiment
  3. Solar Observation
  4. CPR Techniques
  5. Exercise
  6. General HAB Cleaning / Maintenance / Reports
  7. EVA Suit Inspection / Maintenance
  8. Washvac Assembly
  9. Power system monitoring
  10. Greenhab Planting
  11. Anesthesia Ultrasound Training
  12. Static Water Tank Transfer

Look Ahead Plan:

  1. Matryoshka EVA Site #5
  2. ‘Bricks’ communication experiment
  3. Solar Observation
  4. CPR Techniques
  5. Exercise
  6. General HAB Cleaning / Maintenance / Reports


Anomalies in work:

1.      HAB Leak from under EVA door continuing (per Mission Control leak is expected and has been present for months, presumed to be from Kitchen piping)

2.  Power System Misconfiguration ongoing.  Generator turned off ~ 10am.  SOC stayed close to 100% all day long.

3.  EVA Suit Malfunctions – See Operations Report

Weather: Cold, clear

Crew Physical Status: All crew in good physical health.

EVA: N/A

Reports to be filed:

Greenhab

Operations

EVA Request

Sol Summary

Journalist

Astronomy

Support Requested:

1.    ATV Fuel

2.  Burnable / Non Burnable Trash Pickup from Rear Airlock

3.  Permission to replant seedlings into individual planters so herbs have clean soil.  See Greenhab Report for details.

4.  We have an extra CO detector that is marked ‘For Greenhab’.  The current detector in Greenhab is both a Smoke Alarm / CO Sensor.  Please advise whether you would like us to install a redundant CO Sensor in the Greenhab or return it to the HAB and mark it as a replacement part.

3.     Food Re-Supply

    1. 1 Box Raisin Bran
    2. 1 Box Powdered Milk
    3. 24 packs Instant Ramen
    4. 3 Boxes Pasta (any type)
    5. 2 Box Granola Bars
    6. 1 Box Saltine Cracker
    7. 1 Box Cracker (any type)
    8. 1 Box Hot Chocolate
    9. 1 Box Red Lobster Biscuits
    10. 1 Box Earl Grey Tea
    11. 1 Pack Chocolate Chips
    12. 1 Pack Tortillas
    13. 1 Pack Sour Cream\
    14. 1 Can SPAM
    15. 2 Can Chicken
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Journalist Report – December 11th

Crew 184 Journalist Report

Willie Schumann

11 December 2017

Title                            Back on Track

Narrative                  It was our first real weekend on Mars, but there wasn’t much time to lay back and take a rest, because the problems of the past week still had their grip on us. On Friday the generator let us down once again, we shut it down and we prepared for the worst. As we expected another freezing night we started to seal the complete habitat to contain the warmth we have inside. If that still wouldn’t have been enough we considered moving to the science dome, as it is the structure of our Mars mission that is the best insulated. We covered and secured sensitive electrical equipment and send a few thoughts to our loved ones.

We succeeded and had a descent night. I think, the insights we gathered from this emergency event could be useful for the men and women, who will follow us to Mars. But for the time being, we stayed alert, because the problems weren’t resolved. Even if we slept like native Martians, we still had to take care of the generator and the flow of energy at night.

Together with mission control we made the decision to evacuate for the night of Saturday to an emergency pod a few miles south of the Habitat. Equipped with the most relevant life sustaining technologies, perfectly insulated but stripped of the extended possibilities of the habitat this pod served us perfectly for the night, before we could tackle the problem of the generator once another morning provided us with the energy of the sun.

When we returned Sunday morning things had calmed down and we realized, that one source of the problems could have been contaminated coolant in the generator. We decided to flood the coolantInline image 1 tank, to clean the device and refill it with a new mix. Mission control works tirelessly to find additional solutions to the hick-ups in the communication between the battery and the generator and I am sure the earths best scientists are writing already a perfect plan to make our energy infrastructure work not only for us, but for the future crews to inhabit this strange new planet.

Quick flashback to Friday, which was a grand Martian day. We continued our geological Matryoshka project on an EVA consisting of Science Officer Trivedi, Doctor Sczepaniak and me. We went North-East from the habitat and once again the landscape and nature proved to be surprising and new. The location was hidden, but in a mix of satellite imagery, GPS and common sense we finally found Candor Chasma. What a mystical name and a very fruitful location for our scientists.

The surroundings looked very similar to the Sahara Desert on Earth. Deep sandy dunes and mysterious desert plants, complimented by giant stones, that look like they have been dropped from the sky by a higher force. Cunningly some of these rocks have a very large body, but they are only connected to the ground by a small fraction of their bottom parts. Martian rocks seem to defy the logic of physics and there is much to be explored about the origin of these formations.

The crew climbed up to a higher plateau, even when the sun was high and the temperatures in the suits were rising constantly. Trivedi and Sczepaniak really worked as a team and secured a lot of uncontaminated probes. We saved a lot of time compared to former EVA’s and had even time for a film interview at the location in space suits.

After our return to the hab we had much time to care about maintenance., especially because we didn’t have an EVA today. We repaired a few space suits that were a bit out of shape and First Officer Randazzo really dug deep into the soil of the green hab. She had been afraid that after the generator failure, would have effected the temperatures immensely, threatening the livelihood of the young seedlings, she had planted before. But the structure proved its value and all the plants are alive and kicking.

She continued to thin out tomato plants and seed new herbs today to comple-ment the diet plan of the crew. As we were all stuck in the habitat today it becomes apparent, that it is good for the crew members to find refuge in one or another building on the premises to have a little time for themselves. First Officer Randazzo really enjoys the time in the green hab, it is almost like a form of meditation to plant new life into little pots.

Personal Logbook             After a tumultuous few days it was good to come back to the daily routine. There were a few doubts, how everything will continue on Mars for us, but now we can value our time here even more.

After the biggest problems seem to be contained I am looking very forward to go out on the next EVA tomorrow. While the Crew repaired the generator I used the time to shoot some pictures around the habitat. The design of the observatory is a real piece of art and I fell in love with it.

Looking forward to get outside the habitat tomorrow and I will try to capture some scenes, that I haven’t been shot before. I am very anxious what the next days will bring.

We had a great ten days of meals and we are running out of fresh supplies. We have to get creative now for cooking, but I am very confident, that we will create something delicious for the crew, because good food keeps the spirits high.

Thank you very much for your help and attention.

Willie Schumann, Journalist, Crew 184

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Operations Report – December 10th

Crew 184 Operations Report 10/12/2017

SOL: 9

Name of person filing report: HuntJ

Non-nominal systems: Generator non-functional, repaired and returned to operations in afternoon. (Operational Again!!!)

Notes on non-nominal systems: Mission Support found a solution with the generator today. It turns out that the ground and positive connectors to the battery were loose. Tightening them and a voltimeter check proved the battery was just fine. One more attempt at using jumper cables and the generator is back and running! Forward plan now is to leave it on until tomorrow morning (with fingers crossed that it stays on through the night). A decision will be made tomorrow morning on whether to turn the generator back off or leave it running.

Generator (hours run): Back on around 2:00pm. Running 3 hours and still going!

Solar— SOC @ 4:00pm: 99%

Diesel – 100%

Propane – 70 Percent Volume

Ethanol Free Gasoline (5 Gallon containers for ATV) – 1.5 Gallons

Water (trailer) – 600. gallons

Water (static) – 250 gallons

Trailer to Static Pump used – no

Water (loft) – Static to Loft Pump used – yes

Water Meter: 47 gallons

Toilet tank emptied: No

ATV’s Used: None,

Oil Added: No

ATV Fuel Used: None

# Hours the ATVs were Used today: 00:00 Hours

Notes on ATVs: No ATVs used today but were turned on for status checks. All nominal except for the Yamaha 300 which was determined a few days ago to have a dead battery.

Deimos rover used: Yes

Hours: 01:00 Hours

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 88.8%

Currently charging: Yes

Sojourner rover used: ASSIGNED TO DIRECTOR

Hours:

Beginning charge:

Ending charge:

Currently charging:

Spirit rover used: Yes

Hours: 01:00

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 51%

Currently charging: Yes

Opportunity rover used: Yes

Hours: 01:00 Hours

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 23%

Currently charging: Yes

Curiosity rover used: Yes

Hours: 00:30 Hours

Beginning charge: 100%

Ending charge: 59%

Currently charging: Yes

HabCar used and why, where? NO

General notes and comments: Power is back and we’re back in sim!!

Summary of internet: 1.0 GB of Bandwidth

Summary of suits and radios: Radios are nominal after getting charged again.

EVA Suits:

EVA 6: Fan does not turn on.

EVA 8: Latches that secure the back panel are loose. Engaging them again does not change this. Concern is that back panel would fall off during EVA.

We will try to troubleshoot some of these issues and will update with changes.

Summary of Hab operations: Nominal

Summary of GreenHab operations: See Greenhab report

Summary of ScienceDome operations: Currently being cleaned

Summary of RAM operations: Not Operational

Summary of health and safety issues: All Healthy

Questions, concerns and requests to Mission Support:

Request more ATV Fuel. Can probably get through 2 more EVAs before exhausting remaining reserves.
Non burnable trash in airlock ready for pickup.

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GreenHab Report – December 10th

GreenHab Report
Trisha Randazzo
December 10, 2017

Environmental control: (Choose with is appropriate and explain further if needed)

Ambient (no heating or/cooling)
high: 44
low: 21

Ambient with window/door open

Heating

Cooling

Both heating and cooling

Shade cloth on/off: On

Average temperature: (N/A until new sensor is delivered) N/A

Changes to crops: Note all emergence of seedlings, death of seedlings, etc

New seedlings in the planter beds are doing well!
Yesterday five of the tomato plants that were thinned were doing badly, today two of them are in good health, two of them are on the mend, one is still doing poorly.

Daily water usage for crops: 2 gallons

Time(s) of watering for crops: 15:57

Morning research observations: (Currently not operational)

Changes to research plants: N/A

Daily watering and amount of water used:

Aquaponics: (Currently not operational) N/A

Narrative: Any other information you want to share
Tomorrow

Continue to thin tomato plants
Finish planting herb seeds
Install CO detector and alarm
Changed automatic heater turn on temperature to 10 C
Plugged lights back in

Support/supplies needed:

Awaiting more soil and nutrients

Posted on

Sol Summary – December 10th

MDRS Daily Summary Report for Sol 9

Summary Title:  Return of the Sim!

Mission Status:

Yesterday and today has been been primarily ‘out of sim’ due to the numerous HAB failures, including our evacuation last night due to a loss of power.  We spent the morning today working to repair the generator and appear to have gotten it in working order, though further work is necessary to ensure it’s long term successful operation (see Shannon’s email for details).  The solar array system is still misconfigured so power problems may yet pop up during the rest of our sim but we will take them as we go and troubleshoot, as a real martian crew would.

This afternoon we took the rovers out to drain the batteries per Mission Control request, once returned to the HAB we re-entered SIM at roughly 5pm.

It’s been a rough first week, but we are looking forward to getting back into sim and finishing out our mission successfully.

Sol Activity Summary:

1.      Out of SIM maintenance work

2.     General HAB cleaning / reports

Look Ahead Plan:

  1. Matryoshka EVA Site #5
  2. ‘Bricks’ communication experiment
  3. Solar Observation
  4. CPR Techniques
  5. Exercise
  6. General HAB Cleaning / Maintenance / Reports


Anomalies in work:

1.      HAB Leak from under EVA door continuing (per Mission Control leak is expected and has been present for months, presumed to be from Kitchen piping)

2.  Power System Misconfiguration ongoing

3.  2 EVA suit fans were non-functional during HAB check today, which may be related to power issues and resulting in them not being charged.  We have connected the suits to power and will assess tomorrow.  

Weather: Cold, but temps are above freezing in mid-day

Crew Physical Status: All crew in good physical health.

EVA: N/A

Reports to be filed:

Greenhab

Operations

EVA Request

Sol Summary

Support Requested:

1.      ATV Fuel

2.     Food Re-Supply

    1. 1 Box Raisin Bran
    2. 1 Box Powdered Milk
    3. 24 packs Instant Ramen
    4. 3 Boxes Pasta (any type)
    5. 2 Box Granola Bars
    6. 1 Box Saltine Cracker
    7. 1 Box Cracker (any type)
    8. 1 Box Hot Chocolate
    9. 1 Box Red Lobster Biscuits
    10. 1 Box Earl Grey Tea
    11. 1 Pack Chocolate Chips
    12. 1 Pack Tortillas
    13. 1 Pack Sour Cream\
    14. 1 Can SPAM
    15. 2 Can Chicken
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GreenHab Report – December 7th

GreenHab Report

Trisha Randazzo

December 7, 2017

Environmental control: (Choose which is appropriate and explain further if needed)

Ambient (no heating or/cooling)

Ambient with window/door open

·         Below freezing for most of the day

·         Opened door at 10:20 for 10 minutes

·         Inside temperature high 42 Celsius; Low: 15 Celsius

·         Humidity: 16%

Heating

·         Functioning nominally

Cooling

·         Not available

Both heating and cooling

·         Nominal

Shade cloth on/off

·         On

Average temperature: (N/A until new sensor is delivered)

·         N/A

Changes to crops:  Note all emergence of seedlings, death of seedlings, etc

·         The same tomato is still doing poorly

·          Everyone else is growing quite well!!

·         More new seedlings popped up in the two big garden beds! Around 20 now!

·

Daily water usage for crops:

·         Complete with no issues

Time(s) of watering for crops:

·         10:20

Morning research observations: (Currently not operational)

·         N/A

Changes to research plants:

·         N/A

Daily watering and amount of water used:

·         2 gallons used for all soils

Aquaponics:  (Currently not operational)

·         N/A

Narrative:  Any other information you want to share

·         N/A

Support/supplies needed:

·         Mission Control Requests:

o   Items to begin a compost bin in the greenhouse

§  Need a large compost container for the GreenHab

§  Need a small compost bucket for the kitchen in the hab

§  Need insects and bacteria to eat the food scraps and turn into soil

o   Is there more soil to plant new plants in the greenhab? If not, please deliver some with the next resupply

o   Request to execute replanting plan for tomorrow:

§   Thin out about 7 tomato plants

§  Replant the new seedlings in the two garden beds into smaller containers

§  Plant the herb seeds, in one or both of the garden beds

Posted on

Operations Report – December 7th

SOL: 6

Name of person filing report:  Thomas Horn

Non-nominal systems:

1.    Generator – see previous ops reports for details

2.    Batteries – After turning off the generator batteries ran from 100% to 25% overnight.  Per Mission Control this is off nominal and implies the batteries have become degraded.  We will continue to monitor throughout the day

Generator—

1.    Turned on at 9am.

Solar—

29% @ 7am
13% @ 9am
30% @ 10am

37% @ 11am
35% @ 11:40am

35% @ 4pm

100% @ 6pm

Diesel – 45% full

Propane –  71%

Gasoline (2x 5 Gallon containers for ATV) –  2.0 gallons remains

Water (trailer) –  600 gallons

Water (static) –  60% remaining

Trailer to Static Pump used –  No

Water (loft) – Static to Loft Pump used –  Yes

Water Meter:  48 gallons

Toilet tank emptied:  Yes

ATV’s Used:  2

Oil Checked:  No

Atv # Fuel Used Gals:  0.5 gallons approx.

Tires Status:  Yamaha ATV #3 Back Right Wobbly

# Hours the ATVs were Used today: 1h

Rovers (changed from Deimos to give Rover general status) used:  Yes – Spirit

Hours: 1h

Beginning charge:  100%

Ending charge: 100%

Currently charging: Yes

HabCar used?  No

Notes and Comments:

Summary of  Hab operations:

1.    CAT construction machine removed by Mission Control

2.    Burnable Trash removed.  Non-burnable remains in Airlock

Summary of GreenHab operations:  Nominal – see greenhab report for details

Summary of Science Dome operations:  None

Summary of health and safety issues: None

Questions, concerns and requests to Mission Support:

1.     Deliver additional ATV fuel

2.     Return Crew 184 Flash Drive

3.     Remove Non-Burnable trash from Rear Airlock

4.     News Crew absent today – confirm if we will have any external media visits during our mission