Commander Report

Sol 5

March 29,2017

Otsmar Villarroel, Crew 177 Commander

Although today’s temperature was slightly higher than previous days, the day here on Mars has been beautiful with a spectacular blue sky.

All six crewmembers were up by 0700 local time as requested by the crew Commander the night before.  The crew enjoyed together scrambled eggs with sausage and biscuits for breakfast.  A few minutes after breakfast, a group consisting of Espinoza, Espinoza, Li, and Parker was sent out to Candor Chasma for a second attempt of looking for the presence of water.

 While during this effort, as the first one few days ago, the presence of water was not detected, the crew found the presence of moisture in some areas by Candor Chasma.  It was noticed after digging into the sand in the bottom of the chasma. Also, the presence of moisture was observed underneath some rocks.  Results are promising and further research regarding this topic has to be done.

After 2 hours 30 minutes, approximately, by noon (Martian time) the expediters returned to the Hab.  All eight crewmembers enjoyed lunch together.  Lunch was prepared crew members Quaas and Jingjit.

Part of the afternoon was used by the crew members to work on their independent projects.  Crew members have found some difficulties with their projects and they are making plans to solve them as soon as possible before rotation is over.  Also, crew member Jingjit continued working on her microbiology experiments.

As usual, dinner time was used to spend time together and discuss tomorrow’s plans.  Today it is crew member LaBarre’s birthday and we celebrated it with a birthday cake. The crew is planning to complete the geology EVA, pending approval. This would be the second half of EVA #4 that was shortened due to NPR reporter.