Crew Status: The crew are motivated and in high spirits entering the third and final phase of our stay here on Mars, a full five days in simulation conditions.

Daily Recap: Today we had our rest day after completing phase two of our MDRS stay. Becasue of this, I allowed the crew to sleep in a little later than usual but found that some had awoken at their usual times.

Crew members are each undertaking various individual projects such as:

Edwin: Takes photographs of the sun as it is rising, when it is at 10 degrees to the horizontal and as the sun is setting. He takes these photos from exactly the same spot with a tripod so that he can compare images, for the purposes of assessing atmospheric condition, confirming current desert aerosol databases and dust content and nature.

Susmita: She is conducting various studies in habitat design and construction as well as photographing crew areas and rooms to assess crew habit profiles and social integration and mixing.

Reece: Apart from an assessment of the maintenance engineering aspects of the hab, I am currently working on the design and development of a solar power source for the communications relay to run off of.

Heather: working on the construction and deployment of a motorised rover. This is an activity that the whole crew is taking part in.

Jamon: working on an ISS plant growth study. Jamon has a small vessel containing fast growth plants that he is monitoring through a laptop and data logger.

This morning we had a surprise visit from John Barainca, researcher from NASA Ames. He was collecting information from several instruments scattered around the area and checked in on us. The crew enjoyed the hour or so that John spent with us discussing various aspects of what we were doing, the research he was conducting and probing each of us directly for our impressions and feedback. It was very stimulating and the crew appreciated his enthusiasm and knowledge on a wide range of subjects relating to Mars.

After dinner we sat down and planned out a strategic overview of EVA activities for the next five days. We have enough scope within this plan to take up EVAs of opportunity so that we are able to be flexible and adaptable throughout the simulation.

Tomorrow's Plan: The crew will enter the final phase of simulation for a full five days. This will see the crew return to a mode of no movement outside of the hab without space suits (except for the routine GreenHab and generator checks). We have received some suggestions from the Remote Science Team as well as some suggestions from our visit from John this morning, so we will be looking to act on these.

Daily Reports: The standard reports will be in a little late tonight:

1. Commander's Check In (this report) -- Reece Lumsden
2. Commander's Log -- Reece Lumsden
3. Engineering Report -- Susmita Mohanty
4. GreenHab Report -- Richard Humphreys
5. EVA report -- Jamon Neilson