Today was the final day of Phase 3, our final day of full in simulation conditions here at MDRS. After our late evening staying up talking with the film crew last night before they left, most of the crew awoke later than usual. I delivered a scant morning brief at around 1000. EVAs today were going to be one in the morning involving Edwin, Heather and myself and an afternoon EVA involving Richard and Jamon.

The purpose of the morning EVA was to try and find another location at which to deploy Edwin's rover. We had been trying to develop an alternate method of deploying Edwin's rover from the back of an ATV using a boom and pulley system. Unfortunately, due to our hectic schedule, we had not been able to find the time during the day to conduct the design and construction using the materials found in the nearby scrapyard. Despite this we went ahead and looked for a site to deploy Edwin's rover using the hand tether method.

Locating a site today was hampered by the extreme winds that were whipping across the plains all day today. The winds were so strong at times that it was difficult to maintain balance. After finally finding a suitable ledge we brought Edwin's rover out. Unfortunately, the tether that Edwin uses to lower the rover over the edge of the cliff was severely knotted and tangled from the previous deployment and had not been respooled. This, coupled with the extreme winds meant that it was not possible to deploy the rover and we packed up and headed back to the hab.

The second EVA, involving Jamon and Richard, sought to define several ATV track intersections, marking them using the GPS. Their EVA also took them to the communications repeater station and to some of the areas yet explored in previous EVAs. During their EVA, one of the ATVs engines began running roughly so they came back to the hab to use the other ATV. We will probably take a rudimentary look over it tomorrow to see if we can determine what the problem is.

After the return of Richard and Jamon from their EVA, the rain started to come down and this signaled to us that there was to be no more exploring for today.

The crew are still in relatively good spirits but I perceive that some personal boundaries have been pushed, in some cases with tangible outbursts. On the whole however, the crew has held together well. Again, I have leveraged a lot off of Richard and I am very grateful to have had him on this crew. He has been a good stabilizer for many of the crew, being able to diffuse many tense situations with humour.

Our plan for tomorrow will be to conduct a complete clean up of the hab in the morning and then leave the afternoon for the crew to conduct some opportunity EVAs and let them explore wherever they want to. We will then await the arrival of crew 27 anywhere between 1600 and 2200.

We have put a lot of effort into preparing documents and checklists in order that we have a good handover/takeover for crew 27, so that can be up and running as quickly as possible.