MISSION CONTROL LOG July 9, 2001

From: Pascal Lee
To: Mission Support
Subject: FMARS-1-001-2001/07/08/17:00UTC - Update
Date: Monday, July 09, 2001 5:48 PM

Mission Support:

Good morning from us all.

We have spent the morning cleaning up and are now unpacking the simulated spacesuits. They look beautiful, and THANKS FOR THE CARE PACKAGES!

We are slightly behind on the schedule. At this time, we anticipate the first planned EVA egress will happen at around 7 pm UTC (2 pm local).

I am indicating below the EVA premise and protocol we'll follow for now:

Here are the assumptions:
Hab mix: O2 30%, N2 70%, 8.3 psi. This places us at/below the flammability limit and we are OK on hypoxia.

Suit: O2 100% at 3.8 psi. This yields a TR of 1.52 before prebreathe. (The tissue ratio TR is defined as:

TR = tissue ppN2 / final suit total pressure.

A TR of 1 would require no prebreathe at all. TRs beyond ~ 1.6 require substantial prebreathing time, up to several hours.

From a starting TR=1.5, with just 30 minutes of prebreathe (which might be doable in conjunction with the suit leak test), the Type 1 DCS risk (decompression sickness of type 1 (slight joint pains) would drop to ~15%, which is probably acceptable.

The relatively low suit pressure might help with mobility while 30 minutes of prebreathe seems like the impact on ops would be acceptable, although that's precise part of what we would like to help assess.

We do intend to do (in sim) pre-EVA exercise = 10 minutes while on O2 at >85% V02 (maximum body oxygen intake) and to apply the so-called "aspirin protocol" (to help reduce risk of arterial clogging). This will help reduce the actual needed prebreathe time.

We will also assume that the airlock will have hyperbaric capability. For now we'll conduct our EVAs (on Phase 1) on the premise that the suit carries a LSS affording a total of 3hrs of oxygen (including the 30 minutes of emergency buffer). Anything above that would have to be supplied from an external supply (ATV, another pack, umbilical to Hab, etc.). We'd like to start with 3 hrs to see how limiting it might be. The benefit of course would be a somewhat lighter suit LSS.

More later. All the best, Pascal.

From: Pascal Lee
To: Mission Support
Subject: FMARS-1-002-2001/07/08/22:00UTC - Update
Date: Monday, July 09, 2001 5:48 PM

Mission Support:

EVA 1 is currently in progress. EVA prep took longer than originally planned. We would like to reschedule EVA 2 for tomorrow morning.

Frank and Sam are currently on EVA connecting the water sump system for disposal of gray water generated in the hab. Darleen is serving as IVA POC (Intra-vehicular Activity Point of Contact). She is monitoring the EVA and staying in voice contact with Frank and Sam.

Charlie is outfitting the biology lab. Steve is monitoring the radio system performance. Rainer is keeping an eye on the crew's health via Darlene.

We will be in touch with full reports later this evening.
All the best,
Pascal.

From: FMARS Mission Support Team
To: Pascal Lee
Subject: FMARS 2001-1-MS-006-2001/07/09/ 02:31UTC - Mission Support plans
Date: Monday, July 09, 2001 8:27 PM

Local date and time: July 8, 8:30pm MDT
To: FMARS 2001-1 Mission Commander
From: Tony Muscatello, Mission Support Director
Subject: Mission Support Plans

We concur with the rescheduling of EVA2, even though we are not sure if you were asking for our agreement. It sounds like you have had a very busy day. The primary purpose of this message is to inform you of our plans for the rest of the evening.

The regular hours for Mission Support are 3-8pm MDT (4-9pm CDT, 2100- 0200 UTC). We have passed the nominal end of operating hours and we will start losing staff very soon. I and perhaps one or two others have agreed to stay here until 10pm MDT (11pm CDT, 0400 UTC), at which time we will terminate operations. We will catch up on any communications that you send after that time tomorrow morning.

Consequently, do not expect any acknowledgements after 10pm our time. Tomorrow, we will be upgrading our CapCOM computer with more RAM and a longer USB cable so we can have a webcam accessible to you. Currently, the webcam severely degrades the computer's performance, so we turned it off.

As with every day, we are expecting the following reports:

Mission Commander's Check-In (nominally a voice recording)
Journalist's Daily Report
Science/Research Report
Engineering/Operations Report
End of Day Summary from Mission Commander

We are considering your message 002 as the Mission Commander's Check-In and our message 001 as the Engineering/Operations Report. That leaves the Journalist's Daily Report, the Science/Research Report, and the End of Day Summary (which includes an evaluation of the day's activities, suggestions for mission improvements, and plan's for tomorrow) to be filed for today's activities. [We understand you are operating under communications limitations and are happy you have a backup system in place.] We expect things will go a bit faster once the main comm system is in place tomorrow, if all goes well. We also expect that there will be no or little to report on Science/Research if EVA2 is delayed.

We have seen about an hour delay between your subject line UTC time and when we receive the message here at Mission Support. The cause for the delay is unknown to us. You may wish to verify the UTC. For us, adding 6 hours gives UTC. For CDT, add 5 hrs.

We look forward to receiving the rest of your reports. Please inform us if we should not expect a Science/Research. We hope you had an excellent day on Mars/Devon Island.

All the best, Tony

From: Pascal Lee
To: Mission Support
Subject: FMARS-1-003-2001/07/09/12:00UTC - End of day summary
Date: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 5:22 AM

Mission Support:

It's been a long night. I'm about to go catch a couple of hours of sleep.

We've had a great day and are now planning 2 EVAs for tomorrow (i.e., later today).

EVA 2 will be a foot EVA with Darlene Lim and Sam Burbank to retrieve an aerosol collection device set up on Haynes Ridge a few hundred meters from the FMARS.

EVA 3 is a rover traverse with Pascal, Charlie, Frank and Rainer to breccia hills in the northern reaches of Haughton Crater. We hope to find heavily shocked rocks and rocks from the crystalline basement that might be hosts to cryptoendolithic microbial communities.

Proposed schedule (all times CDT): 8 am: Breakfast. 9 am: EVA 2 prep 9:30 am: Prebreathe begins 10:00 am: EVA 2 egress 11:00 am: EVA 2 ingress 11:30 am: EVA 2 debrief. 12:00 pm: Lunch break. 1:00 pm: EVA 3 prep 1:30 pm: EVA 3 prebreathe 2:00 pm: EVA 3 egress 5:00 pm: EVA 3 ingress (we'll assume we can connect to extra O2 on the ATVs). 6:00 pm: EVA 3 debrief 7:30 pm: Dinner.

If this plan is implemented, then we are considering going on an extended traverse on our last day, July 10. The goal would be to reach some canyons to look for and investigate gullies possibly similar to those recently seen on Mars. Your input on the matter of suggested routes to the nearest canyons from our station would be useful. Also, given our limited LSS O2 supply of 3 hours and our assumed ATV O2 supply of 3 additional hours only (including any 30 minutes of safety margin), we might need to consider emplacing a cache of supplies on our way out. At this point we operate under the requirement that we be able to walk back to cached supplies and eventually to the FMARS in the event of say an ATV failure.

Please advise.
Thanks much.
Pascal.

From: Pascal Lee
To: Mission Support
Subject: FMARS-1-003-2001/07/09/12:00UTC - Update
Date: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 5:04 AM

Mission Support:

Attached are our daily reports for Sunday, July 8, 2001.

Attached also is a photo of the upper deck of the hab during today's EVA 1 activity. More photos, especially of the EVA itself, will be sent out tomorrow (i.e., later today I hope)

All the best.
Pascal.

From: FMARS Mission Support Team
To: FMARS Field Team
Subject: FMARS 2001-1-MS-002-2001/07/10/22:00UTC - Hull Quebec Univ. experiment
Date: Monday, July 09, 2001 4:00 PM

Local time: 3:51 pm, July 9th

To the Commander of the first rotation crew, Pascal Lee,

Dr Zubrin has brought with him the information, questionnaires and consent forms for the experiment called: Needs assessment of psychosocial support to individuals in a space simulation in an extreme environment.

I had prepared for 6 crewmembers of which two have been replaced by Dr Rainer Effenhauser (George Martin questionnaire) and Ms. Darlene Lim (Marc Boucher questionnaire).

Your crew has been extremely busy during these days and is already preparing to leave.

I am grateful for your cooperation of this pilot study which will help prepare next year's missions and future long term flights. Ideally, you would have also filled out a pre-test but it was impossible this time. I would like you to think of a way for our post-test interview (either email or phone) and let me know what best suits you. I would contact you in the next 3 days following your mission. I'll be waiting for your coordinates (personal email for future contacts during the analysis phases should you wish to be informed).

If you have any questions regarding this research, its goal or methods, let me know here at Mission Support and I will respond quickly. Thank you all for your cooperation. Do not forget to answer before you leave.

For confidentiality reasons, keep all answered questionnaires in a sealed envelope.

Salutations cordiales de Denver! Judith Lapierrre, CapCom July 9th

In addition, note that Mission support is currently discussing Field Team requests on EVA limits- your reports are being read. Thank you for all the information provided.

We are back online after a short cut off to install additional memory to the Mission Support computer.

Mission Support

From: FMARS Mission Support Team
To: FMARS Field Team
Subject: FMARS 2001-1-MS-004-2001/07/0900:26UTC-Next Day Schedule
Date: Monday, July 09, 2001 6:26 PM

To Field Team,
Mission Support in Denver and Marc Boucher really appreciated the team's effort on putting out a schedule along with the plan for the next day. We request that this schedule be part of your protocol in regards to next day plan. Any changes in the schedule can then be assessed and strategies integrated for more accurate planning in future missions.

Mission Support

From: FMARS Mission Support Team
To: FMARS Field Team
Subject: FMARS 2001-1-MS-005-2001/07/0901:05UTC Re: Update
Date: Monday, July 09, 2001 7:04 PM

Response from Mission Support Engineer.

> Attached are our daily reports for Sunday, July 8, 2001.

Great report, Pascal.

I particularly like the IVA officer keeping a log when different stages of EVA took place. Nice, Darlene.

I would be particularly interested if we could add to that log, exactly when the suit fans are turned on and when they're turned off.

This way we can keep track of battery use on the suits.

I'd also appreciate it if suit numbers and helmet/backpack numbers could be included in the report. This will help us keep track of the use of the suits and get some idea of how well they're holding up.

I'm particularly interested in the batteries.

There's really 4 different numbering schemes in place here. The suits themselves have numbers. The helmets have numbers melted into the inside of the neck ring and collar. The backpack boxes have numbers written on the top, under where the water bag mounts. And, of course, there's that great big number written on the back of the "backpack cover". It's expected that the boxes and covers will always stay together and probably stay with the matching helmet. But if things break during the season this may move around. That's why they all have their own numbers. The big numbers on the covers, of course, are to help in identifying crew members from a distance. Suits may be worn with different helmet/backpack sets to handle different size requirements so there's no expectation that the suit number matches the helmet/backpack number.

So it would help if you could tell us who is wearing what when they go EVA.

Do you recall who was wearing which suit in EVA 1?

Also, it would be useful to get a voltage reading off the backpacks after an EVA. I suspect it will take a while before those numbers start to have meaning for us, but it would be nice to collect them.

I believe a plug and cable was include to make it easy to measure voltage from the charging jack. It would also be good to keep a log of how long each pack is connected to a charger.

It's interesting to hear about doing a pre-breathe simulation before EVA. This is something we haven't experimented with in Colorado Missions. Is there room in the airlock to suit up? I'm wondering if this would make the pre-breathe a little less boring if some of the time saw spent suiting up. I'm guessing insufficient room.

I was little surprised to hear that there were radio battery issues in this first EVA. Were those batteries "fresh"? Is this going to be a limiting issue on all EVA's, i.e. are we discovering the limits of the battery life in the radios? Might spare batteries be a requirement for EVAs?

Again, nice thorough report. Sorry for the late reply

Dewey Anderson Engineering Officer