Mission Day 6:
Every day brings a new challenge for our analog astronauts, and today was no different. Communication delays resulted in the postponement of an EVA, but the crew made the best of things and kept their spirits high. We are so proud of the ILMAH team!
Mission Commander’s report:
In planetary exploration, plans have to be flexible. Analog missions aren’t any different! Today’s plan was to execute the 4th planned EVA of our mission. Unfortunately, we experienced issues with our communication network that required more than a couple hours to recover from, so we made the decision to reschedule our EVA. On the plus side the timeline change opened up time for other necessary work. I spent the morning continuing my review of the ILMAH design as part of a case study in surface habitat architecture.
We have EVAs planned for the next four days but may run into forecasted dust storms (rain) after two days. Another example of needing to keep on top of our timeline and prepare backup plans! All in a normal day’s work for a mission to Mars!
Speaking of Mars, in a couple days we have scheduled a full day to simulate a Mars mission time delay. Two-way communication from Mars can take over twenty minutes. On mission day eight we will spend our day simulating that time delay for every communication with MCC. With this amount of delay in communication a conversation can take a long time and voice communication becomes an inefficient and cumbersome method. In order to accomplish more efficient communications, we will be using an MCC text messaging tool developed by the University of North Dakota.
That is all for today! Stay tuned for the rescheduled EVA 4 tomorrow!
Crew Member Spotlight:
Mission Science Specialist Rose Worku:
As usual we started our day by taking a facial recognition survey. Today was a slower day for all of us. Mission science lead Terry Trevino and I were supposed to do an EVA, but we experienced issues with the internet and couldn’t complete the briefing, so our EVA was pushed to a later time. Later that morning, the EVA was cancelled due to continuing internet issues. I checked my tall fescue (pictured below) to make sure the air line I put to airegate had not been disconnected; the soil moisture is in good standing. Then, I worked on my reading materials. It was a relaxing day, which we haven’t had since the start of the mission. We completed the day by eating a dehydrated backpack meal and storytelling. This time it was my turn to tell my story.
Fescue in soil/regolith mixtures
Our intrepid crew!
Greenhab experiments are looking good!
Bubbling away!