Crew 162 Commander Daily Report
Sol 07
Crew Commander: Renee Garifi
Our crew has reached the half-way point in our mission. We are crossing items off of our to-do list but still have many things we'd like to accomplish before heading back to Earth in one week. Eventually, we will need to navigate our way back home from our outpost here on Mars. Appropriately, we had a lesson in navigational techniques this morning using GPS, paper maps and electronic reference systems to teach ourselves to use the UTM NAD27 coordinate system.
We added a task to our EVA for recording "waypoints" of the objects surrounding the hab: the observatory, greenhouse, barnacle and entrance road, in order to ground truth by comparing our GPS coordinates with those on the map. In doing so, we discovered that our GPS unit is off by quite a significant measure. They will need to be recalibrated in order to be used on our next EVA.
The theme for today was how not to get lost on Mars. Aside from honing our navigational skills, we came together for emergency severe weather preparations in order to prevent damage to the hab and crew in the next 48 hours by securing the airlock doors and barricading the greenhab entrance from high winds. We are now under a winter storm warning here on Mars. What better movie to watch tonight than The Martian- a story about a crew on Mars who encounters a severe storm...we promised our Crew Engineer that no matter what, we won't leave him behind on Mars!
Until tomorrow, Crew 162 Commander Garifi, signing off.