March 5, 2018

SOL 15 - Crew 189 : The beginning of the end

Journalist report,

While we were enjoying our evening off, a surprise guest made its appearance in the Hab: a small mouse showed up from under a couch, certainly looking for some food. It has yet certainly been scared by Louis and me, still awake later than our teammates. However, it succeeded in its quest: Gabriel was surprised to catch it eating a piece a chocolate bar he had left near its bed! He has been quick to act, and drove out our little friend, which has not been seen since.

It was even harder to wake up early today after our day off: fatigue is accumulating among the crew. Benoît has notably been unable to get out of bed for our sport session: he got up only when he felt the nice smell of pancakes. Our EVA of the day aimed to improve and test some of our experiments, the main one being the localization experiment of Benoît, which he has been working on in the Hab for a while. To model benchmarks, he had brought some balloons he had inflated with helium gas. Wearing such multicolored balloons, he looked like an astronaut who enjoyed some rides at the fair. Along with Louis, Gabriel and Jérémy, leader of the day, they then left the station.

As it has become a routine, the team started the EVA going to Pooh’s Corner, our instruments’ location. However, as both of the LOAC’s and MegaARES’ batteries had to be changed, it was decided to bring back the LOAC in the station until the next day, as we only have one spare battery. Unlike what we are used to, the team did not go on exploration today, as they had a lot to do with the experiments. Unfortunately, Benoît’s one could not work because of GPS issues, which he will have to tackle later. In the meantime in the Hab, I started to work on our rotation video: I found the music, created a synopsis, and tried to begin to edit the video: there is yet a lot to do before it is finally completed!
Our afternoons are getting more rhythmic, as the end of the mission is in sight! However, as everyone wants to fulfil his own tasks which can evolve several members of the crew, it is sometimes hard to manage our time! Each member is indeed very busy: Gabriel managed once more our KTNE session; Louis put together a VR video of the Hab; Benoît made new solar observations, etc.

There are now only 4 mission days left before our return to Earth, and one of them will be quite different than what we are used to. We will in fact receive two journalists from TF1 (one of the largest French TV station) tomorrow: the day is going to be full of events!

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journalist.

March 4, 2018

SOL 14 - Crew 189 : Second day off / The MegaARES

Journalist report,

Our second day off was quite welcomed today after such a busy week. All the crew could catch up some sleep, and spent some time chilling in the Hab, around films and card games. As intended, I will talk today about our second large outside experience and its instrument: the MegaARES.
The Mega Atmospheric Relaxation and Electric field Sensor is an instrument developed by Grégoire Déprez and his team of researchers at LATMOS (French atmosphere and spatial observations laboratory). Several versions of ARES have been developed before, the most advanced being the MicroARES, which was part of a group of sensors on the DREAMS payload of the ExoMars Schiaparelli module which attempted an automated landing on Mars on 19 October 2016. However, the signal was unexpectedly lost shortly before the planned landing time, and Schiaparelli crashed. MicroARES was thus destroyed and could not take any measure on Mars.

This device is able to record the electric field in favorable weather conditions and is precise enough to catch electric field variations phenomenon known as Schuman and Transverse Resonances. On a planet, such electric phenomenon occurring in the atmosphere could indeed have a major role and link with the planet’s climate and chemistry. Being able to measure the electric field precisely is thus a quite interesting challenge for planetology. Utah Desert’s electric field matches Mars’ atmospheric one on several points. Interesting phenomenon hypothesized to occur on Mars could indeed be caught in the Utah Desert.

Scientists of the LATMOS team will have to wait for the next Martian mission to deploy their instrument, and want to use the time left to improve its performance. Analog mission are thus their best opportunity to work on the device. Through MegaARES, specially developed for Earth measures, data recording, data analyzing and hardware can be tested for a certain length of time at MDRS station. The instrument is used simultaneously with the LOAC, in order to study cross effect between sand and electric field dynamics. LOAC and MegaARES will thus give a large and precise database which could be used for future experiments on the MDRS.
We would like to thank Grégoire Déprez and his team for having accepted to lend us this instrument, and for their trust in us for its use.

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journalist, with the help of Gabriel Payen, Crew 189 Engineer, in charge of the MegaARES experiment.

March 3, 2018

SOL 13 - Crew 189 : A new member

Journalist report,

Yesterday evening was quite more animated than the previous one. The reason: a wonderful Blue Moon that decided to show up in a cloudless sky, casting pure shadows on the desert floor. Jérémy, Louis and Laurent with their camera, Benoît with his telescope, and even me with my only eyes, we all had a great time watching it. Yet we could not remain outside late as we had to wake up early on the next morning: we would indeed host a journalist, who would spend the entire day with us, and share our everyday life here.

Laure Andrillon is a French Freelance journalist and picture editor, working in San Francisco bay since 2017. She kindly came to us today to write an article about our mission. We met her at around 7 am, just before she could contemplate us struggling with our sport session. She was also part of our EVA of the morning. Benoît, leader of the day, Louis, Laurent and I completed the team that would go to Lith Canyon for a bit of exploration. But before being allowed to go on our daily walk, we had to go back to our instruments, in order to put the LOAC back to its place, as Jérémy had finished the adjustments he wanted to do. Our HabCom Gabriel was also glad to know that the MegaARES survived yesterday’s strong winds! It finally even did not lift a finger.

After this short stop, I mounted my quad, ready to go on exploring! 20 minutes of nice roads later, we finally arrived to the edge of the cliff. As usual, we had to battle to find a way down, but we were finally able to! The hike was yet quite physical, and we had to make several breaks in order to regain our strength. We followed a dried-up river, until we finally found the real one, deeper in the canyon! We then decided to go back to our vehicles, as the wind started to come up. Some photos later, we were back to the Hab!

Our lunch was punctuated by several debates launched by our guest, for example about Elon Musk, the place of women in our school, but the most central one was about space exploration. She wanted to know what we were thinking about spatial tourism, how we thought space programs would evolve, or even what our generation could achieve in the next years. Then, she interviewed us separately, in order to get an idea of our own plans for the future, but also to know the reasons that led us to take part of this mission, and the experiments we carried out in here. However, the day went very quickly, and it was already time for her to leave the station, and to say goodbye, letting us enjoy our evening meal. Tomorrow will be our second day off, and I can tell you that the team needs it!

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journalist.

March 2, 2018

SOL 12 - Crew 189 : The strength of the wind

Journalist report,

The sport session came back today, after our temporary laziness of the past day. We are now getting used to this activity, and there is no risk of sickness anymore, especially in comparison with our first sessions, where we were barely able to walk when it ended.

As the crew had to change the MegaARES batteries, an EVA was planned for today: it would be completed with exploration. Gabriel was the one on the lead today, followed by Jérémy, Louis and Victoria. Benoît, Laurent and I were the ones to stay on the base.

After having completed the usual maintenance tasks, the team had however another mission to complete before leaving the surroundings of the base. As our walkie-talkies had several failures in the previous EVA, they decided to test them around the Hab. However, they decided to split in order to do it, and to turn around the Hab in opposite directions while testing the instruments. The result, as it might be expected, was a wonderful cacophony of conversations, which led to some misunderstandings during the tests. After they had finally rounded off their circle, they were finally ready to ride the ATV. First stop: the instruments, in order to change the batteries of the MegaARES, as planned since yesterday. However, the team discovered that it was this time the LOAC that suffered from its low batteries. Jérémy then decided to bring the LOAC back to the Hab, in order to switch off its ventilation system, and thus to save some energy, so that the batteries would last longer. However, this would wait for the end of the mission, as the team did not want to overfill the ATV before the exploration.

The team suffered several issues during exploration time: Louis’ radio started not to work, though it was functional during the test; Victoria’s bandana got unleashed and her hair fell in front of her eyes, which limited her movements. The exploration was thus kept quite peaceful: unlike yesterday, the team did not walk a lot, but stopped at multiple different locations on order to take photos. After this small trip on ATV, they went back to the MegaARES for Gabriel to take the USB key he had left there to harvest its data. However, the wind was blowing so hard that he was afraid the MegaARES could fall. He decided to leave it nonetheless, hoping that the windy weather would not transform into a massive storm. It was also the first time that Louis’ experiment of time management (the one which needed tactile gloves) worked all along! Finally, the crew had some worries when Victoria said that she felt a small pain in her wrist, which she had broken last year. However, after Laurent examined it, it revealed to be nothing more than a fatigue pain. The afternoon was as usual lighter: Gabriel and Jérémy led their human factor experiments, which finally seem both to work after the issues of the beginning. However, they were somehow disturbed by the howling wind, which perturbed communications and was even able to rattle the Hab sometimes. In the meantime, Jérémy decided to bake new bread, and following Benoît’s idea of adding food coloring, he painted it (well, roughly) with the colors of the Martian flag.

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journalist

March 1, 2018

SOL 11 - Crew 189 : Further, Faster, Stronger

Journalist report,

For the second time of the simulation, there has not been a sport session this morning. But this time, that was not because we reached a break day. No, the team just was not able to wake up early enough. Yet we did not stay in bed until noon either! We indeed had an EVA planned at 9am, so we had to hurry! For the first time, neither Louis nor Victoria would be a member of the EVA. Laurent, Benoît and Jérémy made up the team, while I was their leader. We made our usual at our instruments to change the LOAC batteries. However, we realized that the batteries of the MegaARES were also at a dangerously low level. We had to go back to the Hab to ask Gabriel whether we had to change it too, yet he declined, as he believed that could be done tomorrow. We could then go on with the core of our EVA: exploration.

As we were going further north than we ever went before, we decided to ride the ATV: one of each one of us! These ones are indeed way faster and more pleasant to drive than rovers. As we did not bring any heavy material on EVA, there was thus no issue not having rovers. After a 20 minutes’ drive, quite longer than we were used to, we finally arrived to the canyon we aimed to visit today. This canyon was a bit special: he was divided in several stratums under the one we parked the ATV on. The entry of the canyon was decorated by a display panel about dinosaurs, whose fossils are likely to be found here. Not the most Martian of the things we have seen here, but it is yet quite cool to know that! We then tried to enter the first level of the canyon: it has been a bit hard to find a way down at first, but after some researches we finally discovered an easy one. This small trip is the canyon was really nice, even though it revealed to be tiring! We found some small caves where Benoît and I could take a break in, while Jérémy seemed to have borrowed Benoîts lure for small beautiful stones. Once we completed our trip to the depths of the canyon, it was almost time to ride our ATV back to the Hab!

The return trip was outstanding. To be able to drive a lonely vehicle in such a beautiful landscape, the sensation of the ATV rolling over rocks, everything was delightful. But this moment could not last forever, and the Hab quickly appeared in our eyesight, ready to welcome us. Or at least, that is what we thought. We indeed got no response from the Hab: Gabriel, today’s HabCom, remained silent. 10 minutes later, we decided to go back to the instruments to get the empty batteries we left there, not to be cluttered on our ATV. But as we came back, Gabriel finally responded! Yet, it was to ask us to go back where we came from, and turn off the MegaARES… This was however useless, as the MegaARES was already shut down because of the low battery. Gabriel was by the way worth some derogatory remarks because of this meaningless return trip. Remarks we finally regretted when we discovered that our communication issues were due to the walkie-talkies, which stopped functioning.

Our today session of KTNE was quite less successful than the previous one, especially for Benoît and Louis, which were not able to find a specific word in a list of 25 in 3 minutes, and they had several difficulties counting up to 4, which led to some loud funny shouting matchs. And today was also the day I could (finally!) take my first shower! I also was able to beat the best score of the crew, going down to 1.2 gallons for my shower. It is hard to say that we had almost lost the habit to smell nice here. This shower was yet really pleasant, and my hair is at last not standing anymore on its own!

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journalist

February 28, 2018

SOL 10 - Crew 189 : Already mid-rotation

Journalist report,

Today is already our 10th day of mission, which means we are overpassing its half. Altogether, this pivotal day has been rather quiet. No EVA was indeed planned for today. After our daily sport, most of the crew went to the GreenHab in order to replace the tarp, which protects plants from the sun, as it was turned in the wrong direction. A task which was rather hard to achieve: the temperature inside the GreenHab is indeed 100°F in order to preserve plants health, sweating the team. In the late morning, both teams succeeded in each situation of KTNE, which seems to become too easy for us. Jérémy had yet less success in his own experiment: he suffered web connection issues, and Benoît could thus not drive the rover.

While Louis and Victoria started an additional sport session, making the team question their sanity, Benoît and Gabriel wanted to live a new culinary experience and decided to mix bread dough with food coloring. The obvious result: bread sharing his color with Smurfs. A black market of food is also starting to be organized inside the Hab !

As half of the mission is already over, it is time to draw a first review of our experience. Our daily life has indeed suffered a dramatic change since our arrival at the station! To take a daily shower: over. To do the dishes after each meal: over. To eat lavishly: over. To take a break outside anytime we want: over. To be able to contact our close relatives anytime we want: over. To be able to be totally isolated: over. We had to become used to any of these situations! Everyone seems to have its own hardest lack to deal with, yet the separation from friends and family is often he hardest, and then comes the food, then the lack of fresh air.

We learned to save almost anything: from food to water, from our oxygen during EVA to our energy during sport session. For the moment, no one has for example taken more than one shower! And those were not the kind of shower that is usually had: we keep the falling water in a large basin to use it to rinse ourselves! The food rationing might be the hardest for the team: even each member of the team was near to come undone since the beginning of the mission! However, only 9 days of mission are remaining, it is up to us to continue to work along the same lines!

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journalist.

February 27, 2018

SOL 9 - Crew 189 : In case of emergency

Journalist report,

As today’s EVA was planned on the afternoon, our sport session was delayed by one hour. Yet I obviously forgot to change my alarm clock, and I was the only one to be woken up at 6.30am. Hopeless to get back to sleep, I decided to wait for our evil session: the 3 times 20 second mode was back today. However, it seems that the workout benefits to everybody. We indeed all beat our personal scores in nearly every exercise: Louis for example could do 70 push-ups, Jérémy was able to deliver 90 half-squats, while I was capable to do 85 lunges, all in 1 minute. Laurent even succeeded in making 104 head shakes, though real crunchs would have been better. After around 10 days in the station, we are all getting in a better shape: each one lost about 2 to 3 pounds of fat!

The day was dedicated to emergency procedures. Our health and security officer Laurent prepared us a 2 hours briefing on the morning. He explained at first the good habits to have when one finds someone injured. What is the most important is to make a statement of the situation: if the place still can be dangerous, what the causes of the incident are, how the victim is behaving. Gabriel was the one to play the victim for a while: he was repeatedly placed in recovery position and was flipped over onto his back. After these global gestures, Laurent became more specific in his showing. We are not in a Martian simulation for nothing! In such environment, these gestures would indeed be mainly practiced through spacesuits… Some gestures are indeed becoming much more complex: in the case of a vertebrae issue, it would be impossible to maintain the head because of the helmet. Cardiac massage would be compromise, and even acknowledge if someone is breathing or not becomes a hard task. Finally, even repatriate someone to the station would be problematic: with our spacesuits, everyone is 20lbs heavier, and there is no solid hold on it.

Laurent was thus leader of today’s EVA, where he would be able to try these procedures on the outside in real conditions, along with Louis, Victoria, Gabriel and Benoît. Jérémy and I would be the only two to guard the fort. While Victoria, Gabriel and Benoît made a short detour to our instruments, in order to change the battery of the MegaARES, Louis and Laurent dealt with some small tasks around the Hab. The other half of the team came back shortly after, and they were ready to go on with the procedures. Victoria seemed to quite enjoy the recovery position, as she has often been in this situation. The team dealt with a lot of different situations and diagnosis, in order to cover a large amount of the injury possibilities that could one day happen into space. In the meantime, I served as HabCom for the team: I was their referent inside of the Hab, harvesting the data they give me about the resources of the station, such as water level, the state of our vehicles, etc. They finally came back into the Hab after only 2 hours, as they had completed everything they wanted to do.

Our evening was punctuated by our traditional KTNE session, which is becoming increasingly harder: instructions are now incomplete in each manual, and teammates have to be coordinated in order to be able to succeed. Gabriel also gave us the first ranking: Victoria and I are at the moment on the top, yet things will certainly change rapidly, as the hardest part is to come! Benoît also seems to be getting some issues dealing with food: while we split our remaining energy bars yesterday between the crew, he already ate almost half of them! It will be hard to keep going like this until the end of the mission!

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journ

February 26, 2018

SOL 8 - Crew 189 : Water on Mars ?

Journalist report,

As most of the crew became increasingly hungry over the days, Benoît, with the help of Jérémy, decided to make pizzas. That was not an easy task using only dehydrated products! However, along with some seasonings that Jérémy brought back from the GreenHab, those pizzas were literally amazing, and to go to bed with a full stomach was deeply appreciated!

“Wake up”! This time, I was indeed not woken up by my alarm, that I forgot to put back after our day off, but by Victoria, knocking on my door. After a resting day for our muscles, it was time to go back to sport, and to bring back our body aches. An EVA was also planned for today. And for the first time of the mission, neither Louis nor Victoria would be EVA leader! Jérémy was the one to lead today, accompanied by Gabriel, Victoria and me. We made a short stop at our experiments, in order to change the LOAC battery. However, the voltmeter seemed to have caught a cold, and could not give any information. Jérémy thus almost confused the battery to take back to the Hab with the battery to plug to the LOAC. After having gone further and further north since the beginning of the mission, we decided to travel south this time. However, our map played a few tricks to us, and we had some troubles finding the place we wanted to go to.

We finally arrived at the rim of the canyon we wanted to visit, and we made a small detour in order to be able to get into it. We discovered here something we did not think we would find in such environments: some large bodies of frozen shallow water. Jérémy could not prevent himself from walking on one of them, yet he rapidly stopped when he realized that some cracks began to initiate. After having completed our trip in the canyon and having taken some photos, we went back to our vehicles, and we decided to go back home. This has been a short yet very nice EVA!

As our reserves of pasta and rice are starting to decline dangerously, we now have to assault our stock of beans, surely nourishing, but still a lot less tasty. As usual, we spent a lot of our afternoon time playing “Keep talking and nobody explodes”: the difficulty is now way higher (Louis quite notably paid the price) and our team have been split, leading to some misapprehension and misunderstandings.

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journalist

February 25, 2018

SOL 7 - Crew 189 : First day off / About the LOAC

Journalist report,

On day off for the entire team today: no sport or EVA, yet we remain on simulation, and everyone did work a bit on their experiments or on other tasks. Benoît, Laurent and I helped Jérémy transplant carrots in new pots, while Louis finished his work on our encouragements video for our schoolmates preparing their apparition in famous French show “Questions pour un champion”. The rest of the day has been a complete break for the team, before the beginning of our second week of mission: Jérémy and Gabriel have had the luxury to take their first shower today, whereas Laurent and Benoît already took one. Only Louis, Victoria and I still did not have that opportunity. But that does not imply that we are covered by dirt! We indeed wash ourselves daily with disinfecting wipes, which is nonetheless an appreciated comfort.

As I do not have so much more to tell about the crew today, I will explain the purpose of the experience hidden behind the strange name LOAC, as this name has already been quoted several times in my reports. The Light Optical Aerosol Counter (LOAC) is used to measure the air’s concentration in aerosols, which are fine particles in suspension. It gives the size distribution of these particles as well as an indication of their typology (carbon, minerals, salt, liquid, etc.). The purpose of this experiment is to use the instrument in different conditions to get new measurements and analyze their meaning. Two types of measurements will be harvested : outdoor ones, to get information about the airborne dust, and indoor ones, to see how the air quality of a confined space changes according to the activities crew members are having (cooking, changes between day and night, particles brought back from EVA, etc.).

Such particles have indeed an important impact on a planet’s atmosphere, mainly on its climate, but also on human health, the most obvious example being carbon particles, which can stick to lungs and cause severe damages. We have still a lot to learn about Martian atmosphere, its composition and chemistry. This type of instrument has indeed never been used in any space mission before; it would thus give unprecedented science results on another planet’s atmosphere! It is also a great tool to control air quality in a confined space, because of its small size and low consumption as well as the precision of its measurements. Considering a long term space mission, this is an important factor that needs to be controlled; it could prevent disastrous catastrophes and allow a full-time survey of air quality. As you already know if you read some of my reports, we had lots of difficulties in deploying the LOAC, mainly because of its alimentation, yet it is now fully functional!

We would like to thank Jean-Baptiste Renard, research supervisor at CNRS (French main scientific researches center) and developer of the LOAC, for having accepted to lend us this instrument, and for his trust in us for its use.

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journalist, with the help of Jérémy Auclair, Crew 189 GreenHab officer, in charge of the LOAC experiment.

February 24, 2018

SOL 6 - Crew 189 : Broken down in the desert

Journalist report, 02/24/18: Broken down in the desert

It was even harder today to wake Louis up than on previous morning. While we should have started our sport session at 7am, we could not wake him up until 7.10am. Laurent even had to play some hard music through his door to achieve that. But after two quite light days,
things were going to get serious once more! We were nonetheless a bit late to go on our EVA, planned at 9am. Louis and Gabriel on the ATVs, and Benoît and I on rover Deimos, were the ones to go today. We first stopped at our experiments zone in order to collect the first
data from the LOAC and the MegaARES, about which I will talk more precisely respectively tomorrow and on the next Sunday. In the meantime, Benoît evaluated his localisation experiment, which is supposed to give him the distance to a point we are looking for,
according to his departure position and the distance he travelled since. It was yet kind of unsuccessful, and he tried to fix it for a while by walking in straight line in different directions, which made him look somehow like Captain Jack Sparrow and his compass.

After having collected the last data, it was time for us to go on exploration, this time a bit further than we were used to. No need to say that the landscape we discovered as perfectly outstanding. Surrounded by a distant snowy mountain peak, by dunes of small pale yellow
stones looking like a sand desert, and by typical red rock plates, some much different landscapes in such a small region, we would almost think we were taken in the last Zelda game. Yet, the region was still not out of surprises, as we could find multiples stuffs laying on
the ground: old seashells, quartz and other minerals, enabling Benoît to start of collections with the ones he found beautiful. After having taken some photos of these magic places, it was time to go back home: Louis and I rode the rover, and Benoît and Gabriel took each one
an ATV. However, during the return trip, Deimos started to gradually slow down, until it almost stopped in a climb, forcing Gabriel, Benoît to get down of our vehicles and to push it up with our bare hands. In the meantime, Louis at first, then I, loosed all communications, as our
walkie-talkies started not working. Louis imposed a 10 minutes break; in case of a motor overheating.

After that, the rover seemed to run well, yet only 30 seconds later it suffered the same problem again. Commander Louis took the decision to leave the rover: Gabriel and Benoît would go to the Hab, come back with two rovers and bring us home.

After a long 25 minutes wait, they finally arrived with both rovers, and led us to the station. The EVA, planned for 3 hours, finally lasted 40 minutes more. As our oxygen supplies are planned for 4 hours, we were only 20 minutes from running out of it. The afternoon was quite more peaceful. Whereas Benoît believed to have taken pictures of sunspots, the analysis revealed that they were only stains on the telescope. We then went on our daily session of “Keep talking and nobody explodes”, yet everything did not work as planned. Some simple instructions were indeed revealed to be false. Nothing more was needed to spread the rumor that some manuals have purposely been filled with false information. To be continued! Finally, there will not be any bread tonight: Gabriel has indeed mistaken the gluten for the yeast, leading to an indescribable outcome. Tomorrow will be our first day off; it is time for a lie-in for everyone!

Alexandre Martin, Crew 189 Journalist