2022-2023 Field Season (#22)

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.

SOL 8: Do you copy?…

14:20: The second week of Mission 311 starts off beautifully: the first week allowed us to set up all the experiments that will take place throughout the mission. Now it’s time for us to schedule those on which we couldn’t focus earlier. Starting this morning, Quentin, Meddi, and Robin went on an EVA to Candor Chasma to begin photogrammetry. They identified different locations where they placed beacons, and using a drone, they took hundreds of photos of the entire area, from which they will create a 3D map. We will use this during the next phase of the experiment. This was also Didier’s first EVA, our mascot!

This outing was the longest in terms of time and distance: Candor Chasma is a deep fissure carved into the desert. It’s a very interesting place to study, but this distance weakens communication signals, so Somaya, who was HabCom, lost all communication with our EVA crew members. When trying to establish communication with the EVA crew, we first ask if they can hear us: “Do you copy?” This question often went unanswered this morning…

Meanwhile, the HAB was rather quiet. Erin and Somaya worked on an abstract, a sort of summary, to write their scientific articles about the mission. Célyan took care of the GreenHab for the first time! He also worked extensively on managing the data collected for the Orbital Architecture experiment. We have already collected over 8 GB of physiological data, positions, and cognitive tests for the experiment, and it takes a lot of rigor to manage all these data. For my part, I started working on a small project that we’ll keep as a surprise…