Author: jburk

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Crew 245 Journalist Report April 16th

{De rerum natura ] Journalist Report
Crew 245 Journalist report 16 April 2022
Sol: 08
Name of person filling the report: Dr Benjamin Pothier

As I continue this daily diary of our stay at the station on Mars I can’t help but think about the strings of events in my Life that brought me there with my crew mates. The latest events being the pandemic on Earth that forced us to postpone this mission twice. We had a visitor from Earth this morning and we had to first ask him to do a test before being allowed to enter the station. We couldn’t risk any contamination of any members of our small autonomous crew. We did our first attempt to connect with the ION SCV3 satellite this afternoon but we will try to connect with it later this week.

We all definitely feel at home now here in the habitat, and the constraints of the mission are just our daily normal: Research, daily reports, water restriction, freeze dried food, isolation, sand storms, daily tasks orders, confined space.

Some crew members went on E.V.A this afternoon and I watched them coming back through the amazing bay window of our science lab. It is such a treat to have the opportunity to conduct research in a room like that. There, amidst the chaos of the Universe itself, as the Bard would tell, everything seems peaceful, neat and in place :

“The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order.”
—

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Crew 245 EVA Report April 7th

See corrected version below. Sorry.

Crew 245 EVA Report 17-04-2022
SOL: 7
EVA #: 7
Author: Vittorio Netti

Purpose of EVA: 3D scanning and drone mapping
Start time: 10:30
End time: 12:00
Narrative: The wind was too high for the drone mapping, Vittorio Netti and Paolo Guardabasso performed 3D scans of two rock formations. Opportunity rover overheated during the travel back to the habitat, but the commander has been able to drive it back to the habitat with additional time.
Destination: North on Cow Dung Road 0110 until Tank wash
Coordinates (UTM NAD27 CONUS): 518282 N, 4253779 E
Participants: Vittorio Netti (EVA Commander), Luca Rossettini, Paolo Guardabasso, Nadia Marouff (EVA HSO)
Road(s) and routes per MDRS Map: Cow Dung Road
Mode of travel: Rover and Walking

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Crew 245 EVA Report April 14th

Crew 245 EVA Report 17-04-2022
SOL: 7
EVA #: 7
Author: Vittorio Netti

Purpose of EVA: 3D scanning and drone mapping
Start time: 10:30
End time: 12:00
Narrative: The wind was too high for the drone mapping, Vittorio Netti and Paolo Guardabasso performed 3D scans of two rock formations. Opportunity rover overheated during the travel back to the habitat, but the commander has been able to drive it back to the habitat with additional time.
Destination: North on Cow Dung Road 0110 until Tank wash
Coordinates (UTM NAD27 CONUS): 518282 N, 4253779 E
Participants: Vittorio Netti (EVA Commander), Luca Rossettini, Paolo Guardabasso, Nadia Marouff (EVA HSO)
Road(s) and routes per MDRS Map: Cow Dung Road
Mode of travel: Rover and Walking

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EVA Report – April 13th

Crew 245 EVA #2 Report 13-04-2022
SOL: 3
EVA #: 2
Author: Simone Paternostro

Purpose of EVA: We performed another EVA to collect geological and biological samples in three locations in the vicinity of the Habitat and East area (Pooh’s corner) and continue to collect data with wearable sensors on arms and shoes.

Start time: 10:00
End time: 12:30

Narrative: The crew collected the first samples in the area next to the solar panels on the east side. After that, they took two rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) and reached two additional points on the East side of the Habitat (one near the Marble ritual and one in Pooh’s corner)

Destination: Marble ritual and Pooh’s corner

Coordinates (UTM NAD27 CONUS): 4250946.023 518266.204
4251040.273 518584.714
4250991.861 518827.441

Participants: Simone Paternostro (EVA Commander), Nadia Maarouf (EVA HSO), Benjamin Pothier
Road(s) and routes per MDRS Map: Cow Dung road and Lowell Highway

Mode of travel: Walking and Rover

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Journalist Report – April 13th

"Getting grounded" Journalist Report
Crew 245 Journalist report 13 April 2022
Sol: 03
Name of person filing the report: Dr. Benjamin Pothier

This is Sol 3 for our team and we have already reached our cruise speed in terms of carrying out and planning our experiments in the field. Despite the constraints of the Martian environment and the food and water restrictions, the crew has adapted well to our new normal. I personally plan to take my next shower in a couple of days and we all understand that every resource is precious here. It’s all about ISRU, or In-Situ Resource Utilization and I’m sure that we will all be more and more creative in the next couple of days with what we have at hand in order to enhance and optimize our performances, be it during cooking, DNA analysis or drone photogrammetry.

Everyone is important in our team because the success of our mission, from our comfort to plain survival, depends on each and every skill. If Buckminster Fuller spoke about the "Spaceship Earth" in 1969, our station is our Spaceship, a very grounded one, because the environment around us is hostile, and in Space, everything tries to kill you. We don’t go outside without our spacesuits and we need to plan and rationalize our use of each and every resource that is available to us.

I joined our Crew Scientist Simone and our Health and Safety officer Nadia during an Extra-Vehicular Activity this morning, documenting their process of soil sampling for an upcoming DNA analysis experiment. This afternoon our Commander Vittorio with our Crew Engineer Luca and our Executive Officer Luca installed a ground station antenna that should let us communicate with some satellites in the next couple of days.

I can’t wait to collaborate further with all those crew members on the several projects that we have planned. Civilization was always about collaboration on Earth, and it is the same in our small resilient community. We are slowly getting grounded on Mars and I can’t wait for the next sunrise.

Crew Journalist Over and out.

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EVA Report – April 13th

Crew 245 EVA Report 13-04-2022
SOL: 3
EVA #: 3
Author: Vittorio Netti

Purpose of EVA: Install the antenna ground component

Start time: 14:30
End time: 17:00

Narrative: The purpose of this EVA was to install the ground component of the satellite antenna for the D-Orbit experiment. The tasks included the positioning on the ground of a 5.5 feet metal pole and the deployment of three metal cables connected to three concrete counterweights to stabilize the Antenna in case of high winds. The manual work was particularly challenging due to the need to tighten 36 metal M2 bolts on the cables.

We also filled two plastic bags with Martian regolith to provide additional stabilization to the feet of the pole. At the end of the EVA, we dedicated some time to looking for a lost suit sensor from the previous EVA crew, unsuccessfully.

Destination: Outside of the RAM

Coordinates (UTM NAD27 CONUS): 4250929.883 N; 518164.975 E

Participants: Paolo Guardabasso (EVA Commander), Vittorio Netti (EVA HSO), Luca Rossettini

Road(s) and routes per MDRS Map: outside of the RAM

Mode of Travel: Walking

Commander out.

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Sol Summary – April 13th

Crew 245 Sol Summary Report 13-04-2022
SOL: 3
Summary Title: Busy day
Author’s name: Paolo Guardabasso

Mission status: All experiments are nominal and running.

Sol Activity Summary: Busy day for the crew, between EVAs and the last breaking of Sim to retrieve the last heavy package (Industrial 3D Printer).

Look Ahead Plan: Tomorrow a morning EVA will be performed to collect some more samples, and the afternoon will be dedicated to experiments inside the station.

Anomalies in work: A sensor was lost in the field today, it’ll be recovered tomorrow. If it won’t rain, it might survive the night. Otherwise, we’ll do a short ceremony and a minute of silence for this sacrifice to science.

Weather: Very pleasant in the morning, getting windy in the afternoon. Temperature -1 (low) and 12 (high), Wind speed 35 (avg) and 45 (max).

Crew Physical Status: All nominal.

EVA: Today 2 EVAs were performed: a morning EVA for sampling and an afternoon EVA to fix and assemble the base for our Ground Station antenna.

Reports to be filled:
– HSO report
– Operation report
– Journalist
– Picture of the day
– Some pictures
– EVA request
– EVA report (2)

Support Requested: None

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