Danielle DeLatte
Science Report
01/12/2015
Danielle DeLatte
Crew Scientist checking in!
The simulation started today and Crew 147's science raced out the gate! Our crew is largely in teams of two for each experiment: Quadcopter, EVA Planning Tool, and Astronomy. The one exception is Sociomapping, for which Commander Romain is collaborating with colleagues at the European Space Agency (ESA). No EVAs were planned or performed today and each team took the opportunity to familiarize with how the hardware and software for their respective projects works at the Hab. Quotes below are in response to "how are you feeling about your project?"
Team Astronomy - Renee Garifi & Scott MacPhee
Today:
* Used the tunnel to access and familiarize with the telescope in the Musk Observatory
* Watched and followed along with telescope tutorial videos
* Verified the observatory functions (opened shutter, rotated dome, inspected telescope)
Quotes:
* Scott - "It's really good equipment out there - I'm really excited. It's a good science telescope."
* Renee - "We are rather disappointed by the weather being so cloudy. We're going to keep checking the weather. Once it's clear, at the transit target time, we'll start taking our data."
Goals:
* Control the telescope from inside the Hab
* Power up and fully align telescope to take images
* Verify quality is good
Upcoming plan:
* Tomorrow night, planning to take calibration images and get accustomed to camera software, start assessing images, analyze exposure time, take series of images
Issues:
* Weather, but have other start up activities
Team Quadcopter - Rebeca Rodriguez & Wissam Rammo
Today:
* opened and tested the quadcopter
* calibrated by rotating across various axes
* looked at the maps in HAL and identified two potential spots of interest
- East - petrified wood stump
- West - cliffs with 80 foot elevation
* verified that the GPS signal could connect
* verified the GoPro operation
Quotes:
* Rebeca - "I am excited and looking forward to sunrise so we can get started outside!"
* Wissam - "This was a great journey to Mars!"
Goals:
* fly the quadcopter outside on EVA when there are better weather conditions
* identify more POIs
Upcoming Plan:
* EVA tomorrow to verify flying outside
Issues:
* Weather not ideal in next few days
Team EVA Planning Tool - Andrew Henry & Danielle DeLatte
Today:
* reviewed the three components of the tool: Virgil (Android app), BTRIX (computer-side user interface), and Charon (server client)
* tested that the Android smartphone GPS could find a signal in the tunnel to the telescope
* created a sample path to verify the compass in the Android application (Virgil)
* started a user guide for the upcoming EVA experiments with the crew members
* planned which EVAs would be necessary to implement the experiment
Quotes:
* Andrew - "[I feel] really positive. It's good to verify that the application is working. I think we found some good opportunities for improvement which is great this early on. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the time testing and improving the application."
* Danielle - "We are excited both to implement the EVA Planner and for collaborations with other crew member missions, especially the quadcopter and rover."
Goals:
* implement in-app camera and video
* resolve bugs in BTRIX user interface
Upcoming Plan:
* Work on features and resolving software bugs
* Implement new ideas and create user guide & survey for the "science" EVAs
Issues:
* Minor software bugs
Team Sociomapping
To date:
* All crew members recorded baseline of interaction with each crew member prior to the start of sim
* Received the first feedback and reported to the crew the baseline of communication — this included the trust between members, crew interaction frequency, and identified the nexus of communication
* Overall the crew had good communication
* Sent out second survey link for crew members to report their current interactions with each person
Quotes:
* Romain - "We received the first feedback today, and it was very nice to see how our crew is interacting from an external observer."
Goals:
* understand how the interactions evolve over two weeks
Upcoming Plan:
* continue sending out surveys every other day
* crew members will fill out the survey according to their most recent interactions since the previous survey — however they feel at the moment. This will naturally evolve over the course of the two weeks.
Issues:
* None - crew is communicating well
As the crew members worked on their respective projects, opportunities for inter-project collaborations were discussed. For example, the quadcopter's GoPro could be used to film the EVA Planning Tool tests when users are giving feedback. Also, the EVA Planning Tool could be used in conjunction with the Quadcopter experiments in the planning phase. The team is excited about these organic overlaps and collaborations.
Initial status is good, and we're looking forward to a good rotation and learning a lot via our respective projects.
Crew Scientist signing off!