FMARS Sponsors	Dispatch from FMARS Robert Zubrin - Friday, July 19, 2002 EVA-9 Report | Photo Gallery Preparing for EVA. The weather this morning was cold and windy, but also brilliantly sunny with literally not a cloud in the sky. These clear conditions, combined with the fact that there was a Terra satellite overpass today, made today ideal for a reflectance spectrometer EVA. This was already in our plan for today, so we implemented it. The excursion was led by Emily Macdonald, and included Nell and Frank, with me serving out of sim as armed escort and photographer. The gear for the reflectance spectrometer includes the instrument itself, a computer control box, a large battery, two tripods, various other items, and some heavy cabling, collectively weighing about 200 pounds, which is too much to carry ourselves. So we loaded it into our ATV trailer, which we hitched to Nell's vehicle, and then set out in convoy. We first went a small ways into the crater, where we obtained reflectance spectra of various patches of snow. Then we climbed back to the ridge and down the other side to cross the Lowell Canal to proceed north to the Von Braun Planitia. It was on Von Braun that we spent most of out day, criss-crossing the plain in a series of transects to effectively statistically sample the reflectance spectra from this large, fairly uniform, flat and level feature. Since the Von Braun planitia is large enough to appear clearly in Terra satellite images, our spectra taken from the ground without any atmospheric distortion can be used to correct the spectra Terra took today from orbit. Now Terra sees most of the Arctic, not just the area within driving range of Flashline Station, but it does not see them as well as we can from the ground. But by working together, we can get Terra's coverage together with our accuracy, and survey the entire Arctic much more effectively than either we or Terra could do alone. This is an example or the sort of combined human-robot operations that explorers will need to conduct on Mars. The results were good, but I must say that for the EVA team, it was hard work. Even with the help of ATVs and a trailer, lugging all that equipment around and setting it up and packing it away several dozen times really wore them out. But they did it all staying within simulation rules, bolting together tripods, connecting wiring, and operating the control computer, while putting up with the impediments offered by their spacesuits, vision limiting helmet visors, and thick clunky gloves. Meanwhile, back at the hab, Markus was writing up his MASSE documentation of yesterday's EVA, and Shannon was working in the biology. The anomalous yellow quartz-containing rock that Frank, K. Mark and I found on EVA July 17 turned out to have endolithic bacteria inside. That's right; bacteria that live inside of rocks. It's been theorized that because of their ability to take advantage of the refuge from extreme environmental conditions offered by rocks' interiors, such bacteria might also be able to survive - and exist today - inside of rocks littering the surface of Mars. Shannon was able to isolate and culture the endolithic bacteria in the station's lab, and has imaged them and identified many of their pertinent characteristics. Those interested in getting more details on her results as they come in should go to the Mars Society website at www.marssociety.org, where her progress reports will be posted. K. Mark working on Inmarsat unit. K. Mark opened up our malfunctioning Stratos Inmarsat communication terminal and found tool marks and other evidence that prior users had attempted repair jobs in the field with inadequate tools. Apparently the reason why Stratos let us have this unit at no cost is because that is what is was worth. Using our Iridium phone, I reached the same person at the Stratos technical support that I had spoken with yesterday, and he told me that he had either a replacement antenna cable (a $60 part) or an entire replacement unit ready to go that he was prepared to send to us, but had referred the decision on whether he should to the Stratos marketing people in Seattle. I then spoke with one of them, and he informed me that they had decided to do nothing since it was their opinion that the reason for the transmission failure is because we are operating several degrees outside of Inmarsat's guaranteed zone of coverage. In the patient manner that is probably typical of Arctic explorers who discover that they have been given defective equipment to take with them to desert islands 900 miles from the North Pole, I explained to the gentleman from the marketing department that a sudden 20 decibel loss of signal in a radio device that had been previously working fine is not caused by the fact that it is located a few degrees outside the satellite's official coverage zone, so would he please send us the #$*@%! antenna cable. He said he would. However the shipping hold by the marketing department has caused the loss of a day, and the planes only leave from southern Canada to the high Arctic twice a week, so the marketeer's delay may have caused the shipment to miss a launch window. We'll see what happens. We have a Twin Otter coming to us from Resolute Bay today with more fuel and a data cable for our MSAT telephone. If we can get that to work, we will be able to send out text data at 2400 bps. If not, we should be able to at least fly out some disks loaded with data on the Otter when it leaves. It's good to have backups.
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