Author: jburk

Journalist Report

1-FEB-2022

Author: Pierre Fabre

Today was the day. The day we have been waiting for and working those past two years for.

This morning when we woke up, we were on Mars. This morning we left our beds when the sun was rising. We were not afraid of the strong radiations of the sun. Even if the atmosphere of Earth doesn’t protect us anymore, the walls of the Hab act like a shield against these radiations so we have nothing to be afraid of.

Today will be a great day, a day to remember our whole life. Today every member of the crew will perform their first EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity). What does that mean? We are going to leave our shield, our home, to go outside, on Mars. We are not going to go outside without being protected, we would die from it! We are going to wear our spacesuits to protect us from those lethal radiations! In addition to prevent us from dying, which is good, they look super cool!

So we start the morning with this feeling of excitement and nervousness ! But first our HSO is waiting for us for our morning workout

! We had no problem to endure it because we were only thinking of that incoming EVA.

There will be two EVAs today. For the first one, the plan is to go to the Marble Ritual area. This is the classic EVA that every crew does as a ritual. The aim is just to do a short EVA to feel more comfortable with wearing a spacesuit and driving a rover. The second one will have a scientific interest. We will go to North Ridge to map the area thanks to a drone. I will definitely talk to you in more details about this experiment later but for now I will try to describe as well as I can how you feel when you do an EVA on Mars.

9:30 : I am seated at the upper deck’s table. The crew’s commander, Clement Plagne, will do the briefing for the first EVA of the day. There is a huge map of the surroundings of the station on the table. My hands are becoming damp and I can feel the excitement growing inside of me. He puts his finger on a point on the Map : Marble Ritual, this is our destination.

For this EVA, I will be teamed up with Julie, the HSO. The other buddies will be Clement and Francois, our Engineer. Maxime, the astronomer will be our Hab Com. He is the man inside who communicates with us and makes sure everything is going well. The last member of the crew, Marion, will be in charge of taking care of the Green Hab while we are out. Marion and Maxime will participate in the second EVA of the day with Clement and myself.

9:45 : The excitement is still growing in me while I’m putting on my spacesuit with the kind help of my crew mates! I still have to test my radio and be ready to enter in the airlock at 10:00. The air conditioning system starts in my helmet and I can hear nothing but voices from the radio in my ear.

10:00 : I step into the airlock with my crew mates who are waiting for me. Maxime closes the door and we start the depressurisation. We have to stay 5 minutes in the airlock while the pressure is passing from the Earth pressure to the Mars pressure, which is 1000 times lighter.

10:04 : « one minute left » says the Hab Com in the radio. My breathing is fastening. I look to my crew mates and I can tell just by their face that they feel just like me.

10:04:50 : « ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one… » the door opens and the light comes in. After a flash that blinds me for a moment my eyes start to accommodate to the light and I can see the red colour of the sand and the rocky mountains in the background through the open door. « Welcome on Mars » says the Hab Com. The goosebumps get me. At this moment, I can’t contain a smile. This is the first result of two years of hard work that were truly worth it. A little thought to Raphael our botanist who would have loved that view and we step out of the station and land our first foot on the red soil of Mars. We dreamt so many times of this moment and now it’s real. But now we have to focus on our destination, the reason for this EVA. Marble Ritual is waiting for us!

Crew 240 Sol Summary Report 02-01-2022

Sol: 1

Summary Title: Putting ourselves out there, somewhat

Author’s name: Clément Plagne

Mission Status: All is well!

Sol Activity Summary: Big day for EVAs, with two occurring in the same day. Morning EVA went on nominally, with crew members getting well acquainted with the procedures and the material at hand. Afternoon EVA had a few issues and required us to get back to the Hab once to fix a headset issue, but we still managed to achieve the objectives set. Meanwhile inside, work continued (with success!) on our 3D printer and for water conservation experiments.

Look Ahead Plan: We have a big EVA tomorrow for setting up our atmospheric experiments, which may take a while if we’re not all well prepared.

Anomalies in work: Crew members have been reporting discomfort with the headsets during EVA, with one microphone working poorly. We’ve put in a request for a new mic, and comfort issues we’ll try to alleviate ourselves. Spacesuit Seven has been spotty and turned off for a few seconds many times over an EVA. François has details of the issue in his Ops report

Weather: Cloudy but (relatively speaking) warm.

Crew Physical Status: Sore from our daily exercise, but no worse for wear

EVA: Two performed (EVA 1: 10:05 to 11:00, EVA 2: 14:41 to 16:25)

Reports to be filed: Operations Report, HSO report (with temperatures), Pictures, Journalist’s report, Sol Summary, EVA Request, EVA Reports (2)

Support Requested: Information about whether or not we can attempt a fix on spacesuit 7 during the coming day, or if Scott thinks it’s a bad idea. Request to use another suit for the next EVA.

We assumed there was a precision scale at the Science Dome but haven’t been able to find it. We read that in a fairly old version of the Science Dome inventory. Is it still there somewhere?

Crew 240 Journalist Report 31Jan2022

Author : Pierre Fabre

This day surely was a particular day, both confusing and exciting.

First, let me introduce myself briefly – don’t worry, my crewmates will be introduced properly later on. I’m Pierre, Crew 240’s Journalist, and for three weeks I will keep you updated on our mission on Mars.

Yes, you read that well, for three weeks we will perform a Martian mission. But let’s start by the beginning of that incredible day.

This morning we woke up in the Mars Desert Research Station, in the middle of nowhere, in an environment that looks like Mars, but in reality, is still on Earth. We will only be on Mars in the afternoon after our training is complete and the airlocks are locked.

First, it is 6:45 in the morning and we need to meet our Health and Safety Officer Julie at the lower deck to do our first workout as a crew – those morning workouts will be our routine during those three weeks. This first bit of exercise was hard for some members of the crew but it was fun and good for team building.

After our breakfast, Atila, the Assistant Director, came to visit us in order to finish up our training which started yesterday. We talked about the philosophy of the simulation, the history of MDRS, and how everything in the station works.

We tried on our spacesuit and went for a walk around the station to test them. It surely was exciting to walk in a place that looks so much like Mars, in a spacesuit, communicating only by radio with the noise of the air conditioning system in the helmet. But in reality, it is just a taste of what would be our first real EVA on Sol 1, on Mars. We can’t wait to do it!

Atila showed us how to properly drive the rovers at MDRS. Fun fact: they’re named after real rovers that went to Mars: Perseverance, Opportunity, Spirit, Curiosity… How cool is that? We went to Galileo Road in the cold of the Utah Desert. Driving a rover is not complicated, but with a spacesuit it will surely be a challenge, which we will discover tomorrow!

Our trainer Atila then left us and we had our last lunch on Earth, which was actually confusing since we already started to eat Martian food – more about Martian food in another report. After this lunch we went out of the station through the front airlock and we took the classic picture every crew takes before beginning the sim. This was the last time we were outside of the station without a spacesuit, the last time feeling the fresh air on our skin and in our lungs. With a lot of emotion we stepped into the front airlock and closed the door. The sim had begun.

This moment was all the more emotional because our botanist, and friend, Raphaël Dehont, spent two years of hard work preparing this mission with us, but couldn’t make it to the USA due to visa issues. This was a heart-breaking event and we miss him a lot on this Sol 0. In order to have him somehow with us during those three weeks, we took a small plushie as a mascot for him.

Now that the sim had begun, we all started to work on the tasks defined by our roles and on our experiments. Some stayed at the Hab and others started to fill the other buildings of the station: Science Dome, GreenHab, RAM (the names are cool, but not even as much as the rooms themselves).

Everyone starts to feel more and more at home in the station. At the time of writing this, we are all writing our reports for Mission Support. We’ll then have dinner, the first on Mars, and we’ll be off to bed. This can be seen as a very earthly routine, except we are on Mars, and tomorrow we will perform our first EVA and step for the first time on Martian soil.