Date Time: 20:00 02/08/2013
Written By: David Willson, Crew Commander of MDRS123
Today’s was cold reaching a maximum of 47 °F and the afternoon brought intermittent rain and snow.
In the morning David and Rosalba collected a set of conglomerate and concretions for the MSL/MDRS rock kit. They packed and delivered 75 lb of rock samples the post office. The JPL outreach equipment was also packed and Fedex delivery instructions were emailed from JPL.
Stefanie made hundreds of images of 3 adjacent location 100 meters NE of the Hab for later use for image maps. She worked the rest of the day documenting the images.
Melanie completed her work on planetary protection risk analysis and with Emma linked again with Wellington NZ, Innsbruck, Austria and Morocco using “Mumble” as part of the Antipodes experiment. Emma and Melanie undertook at 9.30 am a 1 hour EVA 50 meters SW of the Hab, using the iphone/laptop with a “Mumble” app as a radio communication, simulating the collecting soil samples for biological studies. The simulation tested a hypothetical communication link between biological experts located in 4 different locations on Earth advising and reviewing a scientist astronaut on Mars sampling soil suitable for biological analysis.
During the afternoon, at 4.30 pm, David and Rosalba completed a 45 minute EVA, 50 meters SW of the Hab as part of the dust experiment. A small trench (8 inches-deep) was dug to examine the subsurface stratigraphy; mud and rock samples were collected for later identification in the lab, and trench was filled in again to mitigate environmental impact/visual contamination from human activity. Very little dust stuck to the space suits even though attempts were made to become dusty. The conclusion drawn, was that the dust overalls used over the space suit as part of the experiment, clearly repelled dust.
Finally the internet connection has been very slow from 8 am onwards despite starting full bandwith. Bandwidth ended by 1 pm even though internet usage was significantly less compared to previous days where bandwidth was not depleted. There does not appear to be any relation between internet usage, internet speed and bandwidth depletion.
We suggest to test bandwidth usage with the next crew. They can record at regular intervals their internet usage and bandwidth depletion.
ENDS.