1108-CommandersReport

Commander Report

11/08/2014

Digby Tarvin

Most of the crew retired a little earlier last night, after quite an eventful

day.

The plan was to have a slightly less ambitious schedule today to give the crew a

chance to take stock and catch up with individual tasks.

Dario helped me clean and sort the contents of the EVA prep room, Christiane and

Carmel worked on producing an inventory of the engineering area, Cyprien worked

on a report for ... and Vince worked in the Green hab. The HSO and I also spent

a bit of time looking at contingency measures that we could take if there is a

deterioration in the toilet functionality.

In the mid-morning we paused for demonstration/practice of injury evacuation

procedures, with Carmel demonstrating how to improvise a stretcher using three

pack harnesses, and then several alternative methods of moving an injured crew

member were discussed and practised.

All the while we were waiting for news from Earth regarding the arrival of our

long anticipated replacement parts for our space suits

EVA3 departed the hab as planned, except I decided to substitute Carmel for

Cyprien. The substitution was because I wanted Carmel's experience with ATVs to

help with the checking of oil and investigation of the problems experienced the

previous afternoon. I had also been informed by Cyprien that he had decided that

he would prefer to do the remaining sampling further from the hab.

The EVA departed the hab two at a time so as to allow the solar cooker to be

accompanied in the airlock. The first two EVA members exited the airlock at

14:05, and the final two exited at 14:23.

Christiane and Carmel climbed the slope at the rear of the hab and immediately

started to assemble the solar cooker.

Dario deployed his drone to start practising his flight skills. When he had

finished this, I asked him to assist Christiane so that Carmel could look at the

ATVs with me.

I found that I was able to start ATV3 (which was the one towed back to the hab

yesterday) without any problem, and was able to drive from the hab to the road

and back without any problems.

ATV4, on the other hand, which is the one I had experienced problems with,

continued to misbehave. I found I could start it, but after driving a short

distance it would lose power unless applied much more throttle than I wanted. So

my choices were too fast or stopped. Carmel then tried the same machine, and

initially had no drive at all, much as I experienced at departing our first

waypoint yesterday. A more thorough description will be included in the

engineering report.

I had asked Habcom to take the opportunity to test a seventh radio that I had

found when cleaning the EVA prep room, and our tests revealed that it worked for

periods, but occasionally stopped working (with the display going blank)and

required a turn-off followed by turn-on to resume operation. I asked him to

attach a tag indicating this behaviour.

The oil and fuel was checked on all ATV's, and the oil was a little low in ATV1

(25% full), but we found no problem with either of the ATVs which had given

trouble.

At around 16:00 Dario came running down from the solar cooker exclaiming that

there was a medical emergency. I heard him say that it was not a drill, and

Carmel and I ran up to assess the situation while Dario spoke to the hab. We had

begun tending to the stricken party and I had requested immediate attendance by

the HSO when the I was informed that this was in fact a drill and that

Christiane was following the HSOs earlier directive for members of the crew to

initiate drills without his knowledge.

At that point we resumed sim, and proceeded with the exercise in sim, escorting

a heat stroke effected crewman back to the airlock and then carrying out

appropriate first aid procedures.

At 16:34 the EVA re-exited the airlock and completed their tasks. A6 16:55 the

solar cooker team announced that they had produced pot of near boiling water

which could be used for preparing dinner.

All that remained was to complete our regular external engineering duties, and

at 17:30, the EVA returned to the airlock.

We had not planned anything particularly ambitious for today, but it still felt

like there were not enough hours in the day, and I think we will all sleep well

again tonight.