Crew 176 - Journalism Reports

Journalist, MDRS Crew 176

Journalist Report – March 2nd Journalist report, 03/02/17 – Sol 18: Completing tasks.

Today’s EVA had two purposes: find what happened to the atmospheric balloon we lost yesterday, and recover the seismometer, now running for more than two weeks. Xavier was EVA leader, and decided to lead a new human factor experiment, following up on his emergency procedures research: the EVA was conducted without any radio contact, using scuba diving gestures to communicate, and limiting drastically communications. This situation is of course caricatural: a scene in which every member of the team would have a radio failure, is not only very unlikely, but also the scenario where it happens immediately after leaving the airlock and keeps going on during the whole EVA does not exist for the simple reason that real astronauts would just have moved back immediately into the station, aborting the EVA.

The point was here to exaggerate the problem, in order to test the worst-case scenario, at every stage of the EVA. In this kind of situation, having had a strong briefing before going out is essential, to minimise the need of communications afterwards. It is also crucial to always watch his teammates, not to let somebody alone, or to lose visual contact. This is why moving in the vehicles also required frequent stops, to check if everybody was following, a thing we usually do by radio. The engineering check was done assuming that the crew received today’s habcom, Victoria, but only her, in order not to forget something. Louis, staying in the hab also could remotely monitor what Arthur was seeing, from his Optinvent glasses.

After having completed every task they were asked for by Victoria; Xavier, Arthur and Mouâdh first went North by foot to check the balloon site. They only found the rope and its attach, supposed to be inside the balloon platform. This is how it failed: the connection between these two piece must have been too weak to endure the wind force. The irony is that the camera we removed yesterday was precisely in this gap, so that without removing it, we might have preserved both of it. But I’m not sure that Xavier, the video camera owner would have liked to give it another try… To end with the EVA, my three colleagues had no trouble removing the seismometer from its hole. They came back early, after one hour outside.

The afternoon was quiet, as everybody was working on his final reports or productions. Tomorrow is (already ?) our last day in simulation, so that we were all focusing on trying to end our work properly. It is strange to realise how short the simulation seems to have been, whereas we are already feeling at home in this little hab already. It surely will be strange to leave on Saturday to go back to reality.

Journalist Report – March 20th Dear Mission Support,

I am sending you my journalist report. It concerns the last five days at MDRS. The journalist activities we undertook over the last few days include the following:

Video-photo sessions during different EVA. The goal was to document both geological sites as well as the crew members and their work. We also wanted to document the prototype versions of black space suits we have brought with us. Preparation of audio files for the Programme 1 Polish Radio Station. Preparation of the Social Media content. As far as daily activities are concerned, we attach all the required photographs along to individual reports dedicated to Operations, Green Hab and EVA.

Best regards,

Krzysztof Jędrzejak

Journalist Report – March 24th Crew 176 Press Officer // 24 March 2017 Krzysztof Jedrzejak 24 March 2017 – Sol 13

Dear Mission Support,

I am sending you my journalist report. This time it concerns the last three days at MDRS which focused on the following activities:

• Video interviews conducted with 2 out of the 5 crew members, namely Crew Commander Natalia Zalewska and Green Hab/Human-Robot Interaction Officer Karolina Zawieska. These recordings were one of the most important parts of a documentary movie we are working on. In the interviews, crew members shared their subjective experience related to the two weeks spent at MDRS.

• Preparation of the documentary photography and video session while conducting field tests of the rover Ares.

• Preparation of the Social Media content.

These are the last days of our simulation. Right now, we are focus on taking last video shots of our crew and spectacular landscapes. Moreover, we are preparing MDRS for the upcoming rotation and a new Crew.

Best regards, Krzysztof Jedrzejak

Press Officer, MDRS Crew 176

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