Day: March 16, 2025

Here is the link to our mid-mission video!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O3wr6GsWbBlu5m8r8c2my2PzMoRghpfT/view?usp=drive_link

SOL 13: Life on Mars

04:35 PM: Saturday finally arrives at the station, but contrary to what one might think, it’s a very intense day for the entire crew. Throughout the week, many of us have been working on a project that was particularly close to our hearts: the mid-mission video. On Monday, I started by editing and adjusting the music so that it wouldn’t be too long but would remain intense, with different phases and drops. Starting the very next day, everyone began filming all the modules of the station and sorting through the videos already produced during the first week. Somaya started working on the editing, assisted by Célyan and Robin. Quentin decided to create a video of the Sun. He worked for hours, and the result is in the video… It was difficult to hide such a project through the reports given how invested we were, but the days are so full at the station that there’s always something to talk about regarding our adventures!

This morning, Meddi, Quentin, and Erin went on another EVA to sketch observations of the sand strata of the desert reliefs in the North Ridge area. This was Erin’s second EVA in as many days! It’s an intense experience since wearing an EVA suit has a similar effect to carrying a large backpack under the hot desert sun. This EVA also allowed us to retrieve a highly anticipated package: the "refill"! This consists of our supply boxes for the end of the mission. It’s very nice to have the choice to eat what we want, as we felt at lunch today, but it’s also important to manage our supplies well to have coherent and balanced meals until the last day.

Tonight, we reach the halfway point of our "Martian" stay, just as we begin the month of March. But this doesn’t mean that the rest will be easy; who knows what these next two weeks hold? The experiments are finally starting to yield results, some have barely begun, and each one is an adventure we can’t wait to start!

SOL 12: Silence, It’s Micro-greening!
02:48 PM: The early afternoon is quite calm at the Mars Desert Research Station. This morning, Erin and Célyan went out to find beacons in Candor Chasma, closely monitored by Robin. They had taken notes using a very precise 3D map, created from images taken by the Parrot drone! The results are very conclusive. They located all the beacons in 47 minutes, even though one of them was misplaced on the map. They took advantage of the remaining time to explore the canyon a bit and even found a viewpoint over the station that allowed for audible radio communications with Meddi, who was then HABCOM. But such an excursion is tiring. Once back at the station, the entire team enjoyed a small granola bar followed by a hearty meal to revitalize.

At the time of writing these words, the crew is on break and silence accompanies the sleep of our 3 explorers.

It’s also in silence that, for two weeks now, new little inhabitants have been trying to make their way into the base: the micro-greens. It’s hard to imagine a botanical project lasting only one month, but these small plants make such an experience possible! A micro-green will reach sufficient size after one to two weeks of germination and growth. This is perfect because we are on SOL 12! Tonight, Meddi, our botanist, plans to have us answer a questionnaire, and we should taste these little condiments for the first time this weekend. They come at just the right moment, which means exactly when we don’t really know what else to put in our plates, since our provisions for the second half of the mission arrive on Saturday.

06:40 PM: Erin recently assessed our water consumption. Each of us consumes approximately 5.16 liters per day, which is very little considering the toilets, dishwashing, drinking water, and even that used to rehydrate our freeze-dried foods! We take care to measure everything that comes out of our taps from the first day of the mission, which means we pour everything into measuring cups or containers whose volume has already been measured. It’s a particular habit but one that is now an integral part of our routine.