Day 13 on Mars and crew 136 is stuck in the Station !
Why stuck in the station ? Because of the weather ! The worst weather of our stay on Mars !
The main and worst consequence of this bad weather was the cancellation of our last ATV outing. After only 20 minutes outside we were under a strong storm. Rain, hail, wind (and so sand storms...), all of this at once ! Fortunately, we managed to came back to the station without any damage on us or on the ATV. As soon we felt a raindrop, we directly aborted the mission and returned calmly to the station. This decision was the best that we could made. Indeed, once in the station, we heard a strong thunder. Fortunately that we weren't outside any more !
So this storm changed all our plans for this afternoon. Given that the projects are very close to be finished, we could take time to have fun by playing cards and to have a calm afternoon. We still worked on our projects to finish all of them.
Speaking about projects, the geological observation with UV is now finished and have promising results. Indeed, yesterday night, we analysed the last samples collected in a small canyon and a majority of them had an important presence of Evaporite. Exactly what we expected ! Moreover, all of these results are now mapped and the final report is coming.
Concerning the observation and the spectral analysis of celestial bodies we already have a lot of beautiful photos. But it will be a great pity to don't use our last days on Mars to observe the sky if we can. So, if the sky is clear and favourable, we'll take these last opportunities.
The streambed and the balloon project are finished too. There is just one more EVA necessary for the streambed. It's purpose is to have a global view off all the area considered for this project.
No more mice story today ! But we still have a funny fact ! Yesterday, after finishing the analysis of minerals, we had the idea to put different cooking salts under the UV lamps. Normally the colour should be blue or purple. It's what we obtained for the majority of salts, But one gave a green colour. After some researches, we saw that this colour can correspond to a particular salt... Uranium salt !
See you tomorrow for our last full day on Mars !