SOL 11: The sun shines over the MDRS
04:00 PM: We are coming close to the halfway point of our mission, which is two weeks—the typical duration for a rotation at the MDRS. MARS Club missions are twice as long as others, and this necessitates a greater need for provisions. We should receive them on Saturday, and we are all eager to see our pantries refilled because our supplies of vegetables and protein sources are starting to end. These constraints push us to get creative every day to invent recipes with the rest of our pantries, and AMAIA assists us very well in this kind of research, even without internet.
This afternoon, the printer is busy! It has a lot of parts for the SUPAEROMOON rover to print. The objective of this experiment is to envision the assembly of a rover as part of a futuristic Martian mission. To save storage space and avoid broken pieces during transit, we bring the raw materials for the rover along with electronic components and batteries that we cannot manufacture on site. We then print the entire structure and can assemble our brand-new rover! This project showcases the work of many students since it is a collaboration between two clubs at ISAE-SUPAERO: the SUPAEROMOON club and the MARS Club!
While Robin starts printing the rover parts and models desert aggregates to study their sand layers, Erin and Somaya have finished writing their abstracts. They will be providing scientific reports on various aspects of our analogue mission and hope to present some at the next IAC, the annual international conference on aerospace.
Tonight, Erin and Célyan will analyze 3D maps of Candor Chasma Canyon, and tomorrow morning they will all set out to explore these “Martian” lands. After that, the entire crew will have walked in this stunning rock fissure.
06 :40 PM: It’s finally time. Recently, the solar observatory was yielding very poor results, making it difficult to observe any prominences on the sun’s surface. Quentin had to fully reparameterize the telescope, and the results have become impressive. The sun is at its peak activity, and our astronomer observed a huge solar flare. After hours of image processing using more than five different software programs, he is trying to prepare a surprise for us…