MARS DESERT RESEARCH STATION

Sol Summary
Sol: 11
Earth Date: 02/09/2017
Written by : Sai Arun Dharmik (Crew Geologist)

“A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the, mastery of hardships”
                                                                                                                  -Helen Keller

The day started with a loud scream in a shrill voice of Sneha (crew biologist). I woke up from a dream and was very anxious about what could have happened. Well, it was Saroj (crew scientist) playing a prank on Sneha, as he hid in the air lock. Though I couldn’t recollect what I was dreaming about, I started wondering what could be like to dream on Mars. Some events that crossed my mind were, successfully cultivating on Mars, a huge dust storm hitting us, a starry night with new constellations, a highly unlikely visit by Aliens ? It was time for our daily briefing session and everyone gathered around the table and the commander started briefing about the activities scheduled for the day. Towards the end of briefing, it was time to assign the responsibility of reports to be sent to our CapCom on Earth. For the second time during the mission, I took up the responsibility to prepare Sol summary of the day.

As we are coming to the end of our mission, we were recalling our mission planning, preparation to reach Mars (MDRS Hab station) and our journey so far. The crew is proud to have made it to the ‘Mars’ and perform all the experiments as planned. Tasty breakfast consisting ‘Poha’ and tea was prepared by Arpan and Mamatha and Sneha.

The first task for the team was to prepare Arpan and Mamatha for the EVA which began at 10:30 hrs. The first activity of the EVA was to check for the status of the hab support system and then visit ‘Lith Canyon’ and ‘Zubrin’s head’. One of the main objective for the EVA was to simulate the application of drone in search of a crew member during an emergency situations and to collect soil samples for characterizing human commensal bacterial. This EVA also turned out to be one of the most successful for the crew, with all the mission objectives achieved as per the plan. Once the EVA crew left the hab, it was time for Sneha to water her plants and feed them with the entitled dosage of Vitamin D in the greenhab. At the same time, I was in the science dome studying the rock samples under the microscope and taking the magnetic susceptibility measurements of the samples collected during the previous EVAs.

After the EVA, everyone gathered for the lunch. It was pinto beans’ curry and rice today, prepared by Sneha and Saroj. During the lunch, the EVA crew members described the scenic locations they had explored and how they completed all the tasked successfully. Saroj was excited to explore the ‘Lith Canyon’ region after getting a good review from the EVA crew and described his plans for the last EVA (tomorrow) to be a memorable one.
Towards the end of the day, the entire crew was eagerly awaiting to update the mission support team on the day’s activities.

Sol Summary:
Prepared by: Arpan Vasanth
Sol: 09
Earth date: 02.07.2017

The day began with regular team briefing session, we planned both today’s and tomorrow’s activities as we have a media person from Germany visiting us tomorrow! Team briefings is always fun, since its scheduled in the early mornings when the crew is full of energy.Today for the second time we had a break from cereals for the breakfast, our chief chef Sneha had prepared a typical Indian dish to kick start our day! In parallel Arun, Saroj and myself cleaned the vacuum cleaner to remove the martian dust!

I geared up with Saroj and Sneha for planned EVA after the breakfast, the goal was to get the soil samples from the farthest point from the hab. The team had finalised upon the location to be as Lith Canyon, it was very important to go to a region that had negligible or no human presence from previous missions as we need a ‘pristine’ sample of the desert soil. The EVA team buckled up for an exciting Dakar rally session except that the rovers was electrical! Its Mars folk’s renewable energy is very crucial. I was nevertheless very excited as Lith Canyon is via Burpee Dinosaur Quarry, I am fascinated by Dinosaurs since childhood and could not wait to see one of the Quarry in person! The site was magnificent with lots of information about different species of Dinosaur fossils found over there along with clear instructions of do’s and dont’s.

We looked around for a while and hit the road again driving through couple of tricky sessions wherein Sneha had to get off the vehicle to ensure safety! As we continued the route opened up to a mirage and we were mesmerised by the view, soon the camera was in action and we took a lot of pictures! Myself and Saroj went ahead with the protocols to sterilise the hands before collecting the samples, we found a lot of ‘alien’ footsteps so we had a walk a lot to finalise the spot! The mission was half done and with just 50 percent power left in one of the rover, we had to carefully evaluate and work our way back to the hab! Finally, after a long drive we could sense home after getting a glimpse of beautiful science dome! This was so far the longest EVA of mine and a memorable one.
Next activity was to check all the vital parameters for safe functioning of the hab for the operations report! There is nothing as satisfying as a warm meal after one is back from cold EVA, normally the crew in the hab takes responsibility for organising lunch. Today however it was a double treat as the hab pump was replaced by DG too! We have made it a point to have food together from the Sol0 and I feel it’s the best time there will be lots of interesting stories to share! Post lunch everyone started to work on the reports, while Sneha and Mamatha were occupied in the Greenhab watering the plants and monitoring root and shoot height of fenugreek plant! Later in the evening, our commander was busy sewing everyone’s mission patch onto suits as the Velcro was not holding up well! As mentioned earlier we are visited by media from Germany tomorrow and the team is looking forward for it!