2022-2023 Field Season (#22)

SOL 16: Little by little, the bird makes its nest

10:05 AM: Robin and I are starting to lose hope. This morning again, we tried to solve one of AMAIA’s problems. We had a solution that seemed to resolve the last obstacle we were facing, but instead, our AI stopped working. We hope to get it up and running before the end of the mission so that we can test it with all the crew members, but we still have a long way to go.

Meanwhile, everyone is working calmly in the HAB. Erin is assessing our water consumption, Somaya is formatting our retrospectives, which is the list of everything we actually did during a day. It often happens that not everything goes as planned, an activity gets canceled, or it finishes earlier or later than the initially scheduled time. This allows Erin to create more adapted schedules for the upcoming days of the mission, and some researchers also ask to access our retrospectives to better understand our behaviors during certain periods of the day.

Behind me, I hear the boys of the crew remodeling the loft of the Upper Deck, a high space in our habitat accessible with a ladder but rather poorly arranged. Yesterday’s experience made us realize how much we could improve the station, sometimes with simple details like adding light sources. Célyan and Quentin have therefore installed a small lamp and placed mattresses and cushions in this small space that they frequent particularly. Robin is also slightly remodeling his room by making a shelf to store his personal belongings. The HAB is animated by enthusiastic discussions and the sound of the wind blowing around the MDRS, a creative breeze it seems.

03:52 PM: This morning, I went out of the HAB to do a cognitive test, and I took the opportunity to draw plans for other modules of the station: the GreenHab and the RAM. We will soon discuss possible improvements for these modules, but in the meantime, everyone is working on their experiments. In the early afternoon, Quentin, Célyan, Somaya, and I tried out siesta programs using a psio, a relaxation tool that we are testing. The idea is innovative: combining different kinds of meditations to relax more effectively, although the support could still be improved.

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…