Crew 162 Journalist Report Sol 07
January 30, 2016
Carmen Felix
While I am writing this report, we can see through the window that there is a pretty bad storm coming our way. The winds are getting stronger and I am trying not to worry. We will see what the instructions are later on. During the day, the weather was not bad, so we could perform the planned EVA around 10:00a.m.. During the EVA we did some EVA checking and we recorded part of the outreach video in Spanish. We didn’t go far, as we have a very nice hill right in front of the hab, and the videos from there are really cool.
As the GPS turned on after changing batteries, we also took note of the coordinates of the Observatory, the greenHab, the barnacle, and the area of the ATVs. Anyway, it seems we need to update it cause it looks that the coordinates are offset.
Besides the EVA, today I managed to 3D print a tiny rocketship. I guess we will not do any more 3D printing, as the purpose was to demonstrate that the printer was working.
During the afternoon we recorded also videos for the ISU students that are interested in MDRS. We talked about EVAs, about the helmets and the equipment that we use during EVAs, about the lab, the greenhab, our research projects, the 3d printing, the habitat itself like our rooms, kitchen, the type of food we have here, and the selection process we went through to be here. The entire afternoon was about doing videos for outreach and it was fun.
We also took some pictures of the storm that is coming, and we hope it will not be so bad. We are planning to watch ‘The Martian’ at night, as Internet would probably fail during the crazy storm. As in all space missions, safety comes first, and we will follow all safety protocols as required for severe weather here on Mars.