Category: Journalist Report

Crew 206 – 03/10/2019

Sol 14

Author : Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

"A different day"

Since the beginning of our mission, the days are busy, and follow a
heavy routine. Today it was a pleasure to live and think differently and
we needed that to prepare the last week of the mission. However it’s
harder to find inspiration in those days.

The daylight savings time spoiled a part of the day. We woke up between
0900 and 1000, we had lunch at 1400 : a perturbed day. We had a big
breakfast with a new pancake recipe and spent more time speaking at the
table than on week days. Then while Norbert was baking bread, we watched
a movie, debated on the place of humour in societies, played VR games
and cards.

In days-off, time is different. Indeed we are not under a planning, our
tasks aren’t planned. And so we are taking more time to cook, more time
to speak, more time to play, more time for everything, more time for us.
Time is a precious value, especially on Mars, where Earth is at around
15 minutes of light speed communication, at months of space travel. Also
on Mars the question of day duration is important : Will the settlers
live on 24 hours cycle or will they adapt their way of life to the
martian 24 hours and 40 minutes cycle?

Crew 206 – 03/09/2019

Sol 13

Authors : Jérémy Auclair, Commander and Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

"Martian Parliament"

Life is often made of compromises and debates. It’s important for the development of a society that people listen to each other’s points of view and take things into account to make the best choices. Even more in a mission like ours were a little number of people have to live together in a confined environment and take important decisions. It’s essential for everyone to share his/her experience and opinion to help the community.

The question of Mars and the exploration of outer space are also an open debate: How to deal with planets’ exploitation? Which laws apply to Mars? What authority will Earth have on a Mars colony? How to define the status of the settlers? There are many unanswered questions that have to be addressed before planning the first manned mission to Mars.

Since the beginning of the mission, we have spent more and more time debating, on various subjects and with different and interesting opinions. It’s a very entertaining activity, with an open mind it’s a great opportunity to learn new facts and to take a step back and see a little more of the whole picture. We have covered a wide range of
subjects. But one thing we have noticed since the middle of our second week is that our reactions have changed during our debates.

All crewmembers are getting more and more emotionally engaged in the debates, react stronger to the opposition and have more difficulty to overcome differences of opinions or ideology. We are all conscious of the effect confinement and isolation have on our social interactions, we see that we react differently to things we are very used to, but it is
still hard to control our responses. But we have prepared ourselves for that, we managed a wide range of situations before the mission that linked us strongy together, and we have the great tendency of laughing things out, which helps to take a step back.

Today was full of successes: we completed the second full Teleop
session (and first in the planned configuration), Norbert observed the
first results of his radiations and music on plants experiments,

Gaspard managed to debug the EVA tracking app he is working on, I baked two delicious cakes, we realized the first long EVA with our spacesuit and Cerise’s counting on Aquapad were interesting today.

However, a disastrous event broke that series of achievements: Gaspard tried to prepare a corn bread, and he is definitely better at engineering than baking…

Crew 206 – 03/08/2019

Sol 12

Authors : Aurélien Mure, Astronomer and Executive Officier and Benjamin
Auzou, Journalist

"The Hab, our shelter"

After the incident of the weather station, we gave a second life and
role to the LOAC : the study of the air inside the Hab. Our goal is to
monitor the particles inside the Hab and compare with the data outside
the Hab. For its first hour of data collecting in the Hab, we submit the
LOAC to a massive particles number. As a matter of fact we cleaned the
Hab and so we raised a lot of dust from the ground. At the precise time
we wrote that report, the wind and the rain are threatening us; and we
are here, confined but above all protected in the Hab. We took advantage
of that day inside the Hab to precise our water monitoring. We spent a
lot of time evaluating the average volume of a flush in order to reduce
our unmeasured water volume.

As a crew fond of Escape Games, we played one before the mission as team
building, and it was a great success. Indeed, the crew has wonderful
skills to escape a room. Unfortunately, the Hab is not an Escape room
and we are here for 21 sols rather than an hour. Confinement is one of
the most interesting aspects of the simulation. It has many sneaky
impacts on every member of the crew. For example it is likely to have
some desires that we do not have in our everyday lives. We all really
wish to go for a hike with our parents, our friends although this is not
something we are used to do. Everybody is used to live far from his
relatives but when they miss us, we know that with a phone call, a train
ticket or a trip by car we can see them or talk to them in a couple of
hours. Here we are confined and isolated. It changes also our perception
of time. It is clear that the days are running really fast as we are in
our routine but we all have the strong impression that we are here for a
long time, not only two weeks. The moments in the day when we face
boredom feel much longer than they usually do. At our entry in the
station our motivation and will were extremely strong and even if we
enjoy the mission the little routine is slowly consuming our will to
begin new experiments or measures. The EVAs are a special moment. Even
if with the Simulation we can’t breathe the fresh air directly it is
satisfying to be able to walk out of the 8m of diameter Hab. As the
landscape is wonderful the EVAs are source of energy for every crew
member. As the wind is blowing around the station these days we are not
asking for EVAs as the Simulation is our first purpose. Indeed Martian
astronauts won’t go out if there is any risk outside so we decided to
stay in the Hab, maybe until Monday. Some of us can enjoy a small extra
space because of their role. In fact, Norbert can relax in the GreenHab,
Gaspard can work alone in the RAM and I (Aurélien) can observe the sun
in the Musk Observatory. Some of us also have activities to spend time :
books, mobile games, knitting, Rubik’s cube. We are spending our days
together, from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm so I want to remind the title of
yesterday’s Journalist Report, it is great to be an ‘unflappable crew’.

Crew 206 – 03/07/2019

Sol 11

Author: Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

“An unflappable crew”

This mission in the MDRS is far from a long calm river, outside the Hab with the weather that changes everyday and also inside the Hab with the disagreements that can happen or with the experiments issues. However we are always acting like a crew and manage to tackle all situations. As a matter of fact, we are working together for more than one year and we are able to evolve together, understand each other’s point of vue or limits. And above all the mission is working so well because we have a good communication and ability to be serious, but more importantly fun and humour have an essential role in our relationships. Indeed life under confinement is easier, and cohesion is improved when the crew can put things in order with laugh.

After the perturbed comms window of yesterday, we played cards. Jérémy, Aurélien, Norbert and I played Monopoly Deal, our new favorite game of the mission, while Gaspard and Cerise were in a furious game of “Crapette rapide”. Gaspard won all the games, he is as fast at crapette as he is lucky at Monopoly.

For Cerise’s birthday, we had a king’s breakfast, lunch and diner : pancakes, cheddar biscuits with garlic and herbs butter, chicken curry, chocolate cake, mixed salad, pastas with fresh pesto. The rest of the crew prepared a wonderful present for Cerise. With that colorful clutch bag she will be a real fashion trendsetter when she will get back to Paris..

We walked out on EVA to rescue our fallen experiment, the LOAC and the weather station. Arriving next to it with the rovers, we evaluated the damages : a strong wind lifted one foot of the tripod from the ground. After placing the station safe back in the engineering airlock we started our complete check of the MDRS to prepare it for the strong winds to come. We fixed all the tarps of the tunnels. Tomorrow and Saturday, the area will be hit by gale force winds. We are ready for that.

Crew 206 – 03/06/2019

Sol 10

Author: Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

“Into the Wind”

I spent a very bad night, measured by my Dreem headband as 5 hours 49 minutes night. This device is a sleeping band we wear each night and that monitor our sleep quality : duration, sleep phases, agitation… Confinement has a sneaky infuence on humans. It can change behaviour, impulsivity, irritability or motivation. Personnaly, it seems to have an impact on my sleep !

Sadly we have no pictures of the EVA of the Day, indeed we left the Hab with no SD card in the camera. We have a lot of checks before leaving the airlock : working suit, gloves, med kit, GPS, watch, radios. Unfortunately this morning we were attentive on the security check and forgot that little card ! The walk was beautiful between Canyons, the Reservoir Dam, flat and rocky areas. We shot a lot of pictures with our eyes, sealed in our memories : “Click” as our astronomer and executive officer like to say in such moments

.

The MDRS Campus has been visited today by a film crew. They were very respectful of our mission and we managed to continue our martian work and life without seeing them any time. Except Jérémy that have been interviewed for the documentary.

In the afternoon, the Hab was hit by the wind. Thanks to our weather station, we were supposed to receive the values of the wind : direction and speed. Unfortunately for us, the wind was too strong for the installation and the tripod fell on the ground. The martian soil is not ideal to fix things with pegs. We will go for a reinstallation and reparation (if necessary) EVA tomorrow. It’s sad when we think that less than three hours before we were next to it changing the batteries. The adaptation to environment is important for missions to Mars. On Earth, the more similar example is science lead in Sahara desert or in Antarctica.

The end of the afternoon was more calm and relaxed. The wind stopped making noises around the MDRS. We were all together in the Hab talking, working on our reports, and watching VR videos for a human factors experiment.

We faced snow at the beginning of the mission, then rain, and now wind is threatening us. The martian climate isn’t clement with us ! But we managed to adapt our mission and our goal each time the weather changed !

Crew 206 – 03/05/2019

Sol 9

Author: Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

“Martian Wild Life”

Second day of our second week here in the MDRS, also the return of the routine ! We began the day with our sport session and yesterday and today, we all broke our records of the previous week. We are on the way to the roof of the Olympus (Mons).

After climbing the slopes of the western area of the Hab, the EVA team of the day walked along Hab Ridge. Aurélien, Norbert and Jérémy were the last crewmembers that never went here, after Cerise, Gaspard and I explored this zone last week. On their walk around the area, they spotted three strange animals. Under the surprise of that discovery, they didn’t manage to identify the species.
Jérémy took advantage of the view up there to shoot the whole landscape in order to create a panoramic view from the ridge. Such places are perfect for photo passionates like him, the colors and the relief of the day and the clear and pure sky of the night are beautiful to capture. The result is wonderful, a large picture of the Hab and the landscape around it : 170 MB of red dust and blue sky.

After three days of hard time trying to finish the Mars puzzle, Cerise, Gaspard and I finally managed to assemble the thousand pieces and we wrote our crew name with Crews 198, 203 and 205 at the back of the puzzle. When we added the last piece to it, an exclamation of joy echoed in the Hab. Crew 207 and following crews, we challenge you to assemble the puzzle during your rotation !

In the afternoon, the Green-Hab was musical ! Indeed Norbert continued his experiment on the influence of music and frequencies on plants resistance under radiations. We’re waiting for his first results that will certainly fall in the last days of the mission.

This night will mark the mid-mission milestone for us. As we turn in the second part of this extraordinary adventure, the crew is still holding strong together, and seeing the end of this journey coming both excites and frightens us.

Crew 206 – 03/04/2019

Sol 8

Author: Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

“Marsquake”

A seism hit the station’s area in the morning. This one wasn’t a big one, about 4.6 magnitude, and nobody in the Hab felt it. However it was the biggest one in the area since 1985. We are all safe and the station is intact, our mission can continue !

What an occasion to speak about InSight mission that landed on Mars in November 2018 and which is now collecting data on Mars seismic activity. This mission is the result of the collaboration of the Unites States and Europe under the same scientific goal : listen to the heart of Mars. Between the launch and the landing of InSight, our crew and our association worked with Mid-School and High-School students on popularization of space exploration and science. We visited more than 20 schools in our French region to explain them why and how we are doing science on Mars and above all to give them the will and the desire to study Science.

Today was also a special day for our crew : Aurélien’s birthday. For the occasion in our plates : a risotto with tomatoes, a blueberries cake, a mysterious drink with blueberries and cinnamon, and more baguettes. This is the first birthday of the mission, in a few days Cerise will also celebrate her 22th birthday. What a luck to spend a birthday on an other planet !

We also began the tests in real conditions of our simulation spacesuit prototype. The EVA has been planned this afternoon because of the mud outside in the morning. Norbert was the brave of the day and worn the suit for 45 minutes. This EVA had the purpose to clarify the advantages and the issues of the spacesuit in order to improve the system. This was a success, what an achievement to finally see our SpaceSuit in its natural habitat !

Crew 206 – 03/03/2019

Sol 7

Author: Benjamin Auzou, Journalist

"Martian Sol-Off"

For our first day-off of the mission, we played cards, begin to complete the Mars puzzle of the MDRS. But above all we spend a lot of time in the kitchen: Gaspard and Aurélien prepared pancakes for breakfast, Jérémy and Cerise baked French baguettes, and Aurélien and I cooked a gratin dauphinois (potatoes cooked in cream and cheese baked in the oven). All that was bettered by the basil leafs brought by Norbert from the Green-Hab.

Outside the Hab, the weather changed all along the day. After a sunny morning and a rainy noon, the afternoon was shared between grey clouds and hail. Even if it wasn’t Mars-like, the sound of rain and hail on the Habs roof was relaxing. In the same time our furious Monopoly Deal games were the great activity of the afternoon, even if Gaspard’s luck with cards drawing killed the competition.

This day-off is for us the occasion to present you the results of our water monitoring. We are counting the water we use in different categories: drinking, cooking, dishes, hygiene, flushes and Green-Hab. Thanks to that we managed to reduce our consumption and realized a precise monitoring. We measured in average 88% of our water consumption and classified that in the categories for each sol spend in the MDRS.

Today we recharged our batteries for the week to come that will be busy between the first tests our own simulation spacesuit and the follow-up of the human factors experiments.

More than one third of our mission is done, this first week was balanced between the first marks in the station, the first scientific experiments but also the first difficulties. As in all space missions, we are facing difficulties and we are led to adapt ourselves and react with what we have here in the station. More than ever, we are feeling that we make science evolve in the right way to Mars.

Crew 206 – 03/02/2019

Sol 6

Author: Auzou Benjamin, Journalist

"Telehope"

The return of the rain kept us inside the Hab for the morning. So we decided to clean both the lower and upper deck. The sand and the dust of the desert are our enemies, these particles are everywhere here and difficult to remove, but with courage, and a vigorous vacuum cleaner, we managed to make the Hab almost brand-new.

Cerise prepared us a bunch of cookies for the dessert. Even if she found that the cookies were "different from those she cook at home", they were delicious!

The afternoon marked the return of the hope for the experiment TELEOP. The digital version is still unavailable because of the loss of the computer’s charger, but Jérémy managed to correct the connection issues of the rover. We all drove the rover under heart monitoring.

This is the second time this experiment is performed here in the MDRS by ISAE-SUPAERO crews; it has also been developed by Simon Bouriat, Health and Safety Officer of MDRS 175 in the Lunares station (Poland) in 2018. This is a special experiment for us and our association. It’s pleasant to see the rover run again and we’re waiting for a charger to continue the digital experiment.

Tomorrow is our first day-off, no EVA, no experiments. We will use this free time to reorganize the Hab and realize cohesion activities, like playing cards or board games.

This is a tradition of ISAE-SUPAERO crews, like for the astronauts in the ISS, Sundays are off. We consider that this free time is indispensable to the success of such missions, psychology and human factors are important. Astronauts need this time for themselves and for crew cohesion.

Crew 206 – 03/01/2019

Sol 5

Author: Auzou Benjamin, Journalist

"Music, Music"

The goal of the EVA of the morning was to climb to Hab Ridge to reach
Hab View North and enjoy a nice view on the station. With Cerise and
Gaspard, we faced the muddy slopes during an hour before reaching our goal.
The landscape up there was fantastic; every quarter turn I made around
me was the discovery of a new landscape, a new universe. I was
travelling from round and eroded rocks to sharp buttes, from an abrupt
plateau that reminded me of Monument Valley to a snowy mountain. That
was like if this place had been a draft for the creation of geologic
richness and diversity of this planet.

Since the beginning of our mission, music has a precious role, in
musical ambiance for life moments, sport sessions or experiments, to
relax before going to sleep or just to spend time and have fun. Everyone
shares its favorite playlist, its favorite music style.

We offer you a musical selection, composed of six songs, one for each of
us, that we listened, discovered or rediscovered during the beginning of
the mission.

-Come Together, The Beatles
"This music has the power to give me back energy even in fatigue
moments, so that it’s difficult for me to not singing. It’s a perfect
song to resist fatigue or boredom moments, but really for my crewmates’
ears."

-Papa loves Mambo, Perry Como
"Listened during reports writing, this song was relaxing and catchy for
the crew, that was a good moment for me and the rest of the team!"

-Mr Brightside, The Killers
"This song represents the beginning of my adventure in loving english
rock, as it is the first song I actually recall loving. I remember with
remarkable details the first time I heard it in my brother’s room when I
was 6. Mr Brightside was played randomly yesterday evening in the
playlist of an other crew member."

– Contact, Daft Punk
"When I listen to this music, it feels like I am with the astronauts, on
their way to space. It gives me goose bumps listening to the beats and
to the rocket taking off, but also thinking of what they’ve achieved."

– Sleepless Nights, FM Attack
"This title moves me to another place temporarily, on a sunny beach or
on the shore of a calm and peaceful lake. It helps me concentrate, find
energy and motivation to work on any task. Even for a short time, it
helps me continue for a while."

– Banana Pancakes, Jack Johnson
"For some reason, this song never fails to remind me of our little trips
to the beach in family when I was a kid. Playing it during the mission,
so far away from those moments, made me feel almost at home again, and
as always, it also filled me with happiness and good memories."