Sol summary 10/26/16

Person filling out report: Anastasiya Stepanova

Summary Title: Semi-day off

Mission status: Operations are nominal

Sol activity Summary: Due to arrived experiment Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLiSS), crew didn’t have the day off on Sunday. We decided to have it after all the preparations for the experiment will be done. Crew spent first part of the day finishing the final set ups for the experiment, therefore today is a semi-day off. Second part of the day was filled with working on the projects, reports and one hour of yoga.   

Anomalies in work: No

Weather: Sunny, soil is still wet

Crew Physical Status: Good

EVA: No

Bioregenerative Life Support Systems

This report was filed by Anastasiya Stepanova- Crew Journalist

Finally, we received equipment for an interesting experiment. It is a mix of human factors studies, life support system and agriculture. Our remote science team expert Heather Hava proposed research program Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLiSS), which will make our life at Mars Desert Research Station even more Earthy. It focuses on developing plant growth robotics and automation technologies such as SmartPOT to improve astronauts’ nutritional and psychological health during long-duration space missions.

For the last couple of days the crew was busy setting up this unique experiment. Basically, each crew member will have its SmartPot with desirable plants in it, devices “embrace”(wearable monitor) placed on their wrist and the beacon. The SmartPots are hydroponic system, which will monitor the health of the plants and let us know whenever it needs more care. Plants can be placed in different locations, but most preferably in the zone where crew members spend the most of the time, therefore remote science team can monitor psychological and health status. The embraces will be on 23 hours per day and only will be taken off in the morning for one hour to charge. The beacon system will monitors the movement of the crew around plants and time spend next to the plants.

We are very curious to start new chapter of living at the station with our new pets: basils, strawberries, peas, onions, leafy Asian greens, lettuce. Expect a very happy journalist report after we harvest and enjoy our fresh Martian food.   

In this particular case, we see that space exploration unites nature (plants), robotics and human factors. In a hostile space environment one can’t live without another. Bioregenerative Life Support Systems will be the cornerstone of successful long duration human space exploration missions, which will help to sustain colonies on Mars.

Commander log – 2nd entry
by Alexandre Mangeot

Sol: 27
UTC Date: October 26th 2016
________
Crew status
Morale: Optimal and stable
Health: No serious issue, minor injury occurred earlier this week
Workload: Overload this week with Heather’s experiments setup, no break for 9 days in row
________
Personal status
Morale: Optimal
Health: Weight stable, increasing tendency
Workload: My projects are behind time
________
Inventory
Food: Ok, small resupply arrived yesterday
Water: Ok, around one tank and half from my last estimation
Laboratory hardware: Still missing
Med kit: Incomplete
Connectivity: Optimal reliability (tanks to Bernard’s router), blew the data allowance twice this week due to support for Heather’s experiments and probably an update from someone else computer
________
Personal notes
Aside benign disagreements, the crew is working smoothly. Step by step I have assigned other responsibilities to some crew-members:
– Jon/Geologist: plan the EVAs and report back to me
– Anastasiya/Journalist: manage and plan the reports for all of us

I feel like a steady state has been reached.
The steady state should allow me to work more on my projects that are paused as long as necessary until the rest of the crew can work efficiently.

Alex