Astronomy (Jenny): Weather permitting, we will use the CCD camera tonight to take practice shots of RS CVn. Five flat fields were taken around sunset, and five dark frames will be taken later in the evening. We will also evaluate whether or not the telescope needs to be polar aligned.

Celestial Navigation (Jenny): We attempted our first sextant observation during this afternoon's EVA. Since we knew the sextant would be difficult to adjust while wearing EVA gloves, we properly aligned its mirrors inside the hab this morning. It proved to be a challenging (but not impossible) process due to a lack of straight edges viewable in the distance. Once outside, we attempted to take noon sights, but at local noon the sun was too high in the sky for its angle to be measured by the sextant (through the artificial horizon). We made a very rough estimate of the sun's angle at noon and will send it back to Georgia Tech mission support for processing. Then we waited for the sun to drop low enough in the sky to take an accurate reading with the sextant, at which point we noted the angle and time. These data will be used post-mission to calculate the latitude and longitude of the observation location. The GPS coordinates of the location were also noted for later comparison.

Communication and Navigation (Jan): Today's EVA saw the first field test of our communication and navigation system. Both voice and data transmissions between a GPS/transceiver beacon on the EVA backpacks and the base station at the hab worked as expected.

The sponsor arrived with the balloon system this morning. Due to several equipment issues, only the balloons could be launched, not the robot or its special tether. However, the balloons will already provide Crew 47 with a sufficient platform to perform our radiocommunications research.

Tomorrow's EVA will see the first use of a balloon-borne repeater and multiple position beacons.

Human Factors (Jan): The third element of Crew 47's Human Factors research efforts is the Planetary Habitat Analog Design Efficiency Survey (PHADES). This survey was created by Human Factors researchers at NASA's Johnson and Marshall centers.

The PHADES experiment will look at the station's habitability-related features as part of the environmental stressors. On the last day of the mission, each participating member of the station crew will note his or her subjective assessment of MDRS features like lighting, colors, room arrangement, noise and other items. The PHADES data will be compiled after the mission, and combined with results obtained from other crews at MDRS and other comparable environments to increase the body of knowledge about desirable and problematic habitability-related features.

Radiation (Jason): Measurements were taken today on the pedestrian/mobile EVA with both the GPS and the Gamma Scout. However, there was a problem with the time stamps on both device so it is not clear which radiation readings correspond to which GPS coordinates.

To remedy the problem on the next EVA, it is suggested that all of the data on the GPS (including local waypoints) and the Gamma Scout be cleared just before EVA preparation. If the EVA goes a long distance from the Hab then an additional GPS with the local waypoints can be brought as well.

Preliminary tests of the in-Situ resources to provide extra shielding revealed no significant change in the radiation dose (v/hr) when the Gamma Scout was pointed at a rock or mound of dirt. However, a controlled experiment will be performed on a subsequent EVA with the Station Engineer and her shovel so that the procedure of yesterday's report can quantitatively verify this qualitative information.

For tomorrow's EVA, the Gamma Scout and GPS data will be collected again and hopefully recorded properly so that the in-Situ resource test can be performed accurately on a subsequent EVA.

Jenny Rome
MDRS Crew 47