0324-CommandersReport

Greetings Mission Support,

Commander Report Crew 166:

Mathieu Roiseux

Sol 4

Earth date: 24/03/16

Last night the crew astronomer went to the MUSK observatory for the

first time. Unfortunately, the large eyepieces need to be screwed on

the telescope and the piece that we made works as the small eyepieces.

We are adjusting the adaptation piece and this night it should work.

The astronomer took in hand the telescope and she showed us Jupiter

and the Orion Nebula. The battery of the dome was low at the end of

the observation and we had to wait this morning and the sunrise to

achieve closing it. We also took pictures from the “window” of the

observatory around 05:00 am.

Due to the observation night, we sleep more than usually this morning

and we planned the EVA this afternoon. Julie, our crew biologist is

suffering from back pain and did not come with us as she should have

done. The ATV 5 was hard to start and stopped really fast after the

engine ignition. I put it back in the parking zone and went back in

the airlock were the key of the ATV 2 was waiting me. It took some

time to wait for pressurization and depressurization so we start with

few minutes of delay.

The telecommunication experiment was our main purpose to use ATVs and

took us the most of our time. It performs quite well. During our

travel, we detected two transmitters that Gregory placed and it help

us to detect some hazardous zones on our way. We traveled on new

tracks and get a bit lost. However we found easily our way back to the

HAB.

Around 05:30 pm we received a package of food. Just after, Bertrand

and Gregory made the routine check. They were able to start the ATV 5

and maintained gas few minutes to fill in the battery.

From Crew 166; MDRS Martian Outpost

Crew Commander

Mathieu

Semper Altius