1107-CommandersReport

Commander Report

11/07/2014

Digby Tarvin

Never a dull moment on Mars...

Last night, immediately after completing our reporting, the HSO conducted a

surprise 'carbon monoxide' drill. I was pleased with the performance of the

crew, although as always there are areas which can be improved, and Vince gave a

thorough debrief afterwards.

Later in the evening I encountered the less glamorous side of life on Mars when

the toilet system failed to operate satisfactorily. Not only was it time

consuming trying to obtain an adequate flush, it is also extravagant with our

water and at night makes a lot of noise with the water pump above the crews

quarters. The HSO took charge the next morning and after a a bit of effort

reported that he had gotten the flow rate back to where it was at the start of

the rotation.

At our morning meeting today, the Greenhab team reported that preparation was

complete, that daily maintenance requirements should be known by the end of the

day. Carmel and Vince are to attend to that as required.

Christiane reported that the Solar cooker construction is likely to be ongoing

during the day, and I asked the other crew members to assist with then when not

engaged in other duties.

We have been advised that our new spacesuit helmets will be arriving at Mars

shortly, so I asked Dario to inspect the air hoses and neck rings so that we are

prepared if the new helmets do not come with replacements for these items.

For the afternoon I scheduled an ATV supported EVA (EVA2) aimed at more extended

gene mining sampling, for the afternoon.

At the end of our meeting, we discussed contingency plans that could be adopted

if there is a complete failure of the toilet, and have decided that a bucket

with double garbage bag be left in the shower room for emergency use if the

toilet ceases to be able to deal with solid waste.

After lunch of Onion soup (unfortunately, the instructions on the packet said

'just add onions', which made things a bit difficult with the resources we had

on Mars)we started our preparation for the afternoon EVA.

The EVA,which consisted of myself as EVA commander, Dario as navigator/steno,

plus Cyprien and Vince as scientists departed the airlock at 14:15, and mounted

the ATVs. I took ATV 4 which gave us a bit of trouble when starting, as the

engine kept cutting out when trying to put it in to gear, but with a bit of

persistence it started and we reached our first waypoint at North Fork at 14:42.

Cyprien then selected two new sampling locations on a hill at 0519276 4251514,

and a third at 0519194 4251556.

We completed the sampling at about 15:30, and then attempted to proceed to

waypoint 14205 (River bed). Our departure was slightly delayed because ATV4 was

difficult to start, but were on our way after a few minutes.

However our progress was short lived, as after about five minutes ATV4 started

to lose power, and came to a halt at UTM 0518919 4252397. This time it refused

to re-start, and to make matters worse, we were now in a communications blind

spot and unable to raise the hab.

After spending several minutes unsucessfully trying to start the ATV, I sent

Cyprien and Vincent (as EVA2) back to our previous way point as (where we did

have good communications) to act as a relay and attempt to obtain suggestions

from Carmel who was the most experienced ATV user in the crew.

At 15:59 EVA2 established communications with the hab, but the communication was

difficult and considering the time, I decided to send EVA2 back to the hab, and

return with Carmel in taking Dario's place.

The rescue team left the hab at 16:49, and after an encounter with some local

authorities who took an unexpected interest in our EVA, arrived shortly after

17:00.

Carmel took a look at ATV4 and determined that it started best with having the

choke full on and then once on engine would not remain running when the throttle

was released. Due to this problem the ATV would not engage into drive without

cutting out. She was able to start the vehicle using what she referred to as a

'double brake start', where the vehicle was in drive when started. This seemed

to have provided a workaround for the problem, and we were able to commence our

journey back to the hab. It was observed that any time the problem ATV slowed or

was halted, the engine would cut out. We made it as far as the first check

point, and then our progress was halted by a failure of ATV3. ATV3 was able to

start, but it would continue to cut out, even with the throttle engaged. Double

brake start did was not effective in this case, so the towing which we thought

we had avoided with ATV4 was required for ATV3.

At 17:50, we arrived at the hab, just in time to remove our EVA gear and start

work on the days reports.

I Usually start the day wondering how I will think of something different to

write about. So far, this has never proved to be a problem.

There is never a dull moment on Mars..