Crew Status: The crew is in very high spirits as we conclude our stay at MDRS.

Daily Recap: Today was our tenth and final consecutive simulation day. In the morning, EVA 20 (Diaz and Wardlow, along with McCarthy as Habcom) successfully embarked on an ATV EVA that had as its goal to find a new passage-way that would connect previous established MDRS roads, along Muddy Creek and near North Pinto Hills. The rest of the crew completed reports and various Hab tasks.

In the afternoon, EVA 21 (McCarthy and Foltyn, along with Diaz as Habcom) successfully completed the final EVA to the Remote Radio Station. GreenHab maintenance and repairs were also completed (Russell and Collins), and the crew worked on various tasks, which included, but were not limited to, attempting to start up the blue-truck ("pressurized rover"), finishing the electrical diagram, preparing for transition activities, and completing their Crew 27 Mission Summaries.

Additional Comments:

EVA-20 (Diaz and Wardlow): This EVA was, for me, the most exciting EVA that I participated in. It had all the necessary elements of an exciting mission. We departed at 8:40am with a solid idea of what we wanted to accomplish. Our goal was to go south from the Hab on Lowell Highway, northeast on a road marked "4WD", go through the North Pinto Hills, eventually hit Muddy Creek, and then find a passage along the river that would connect to established roads south of the Hanksville Airport. The first portion of the EVA was moderately challenging. However, as we hit the peak at North Pinto Hills, we reached, what I believe, to be the most beautiful and striking scenery I have seen at MDRS. I was honestly taken back by such amazing combination of cliffs, hills, and rivers. It was simply amazing. Eventually, after making our own roads (there were no indications of ATV tracks), we reached Muddy Creek. We then proceeded to drive along the river for about 2km, in previously unventured passages. This was extremely challenging, but we were confident of our navigation abilities and understood that if we followed the skills taught to us by our EVA Commander, we would reach the established roads we were looking for, which we did about 2 hours after departure.

For detailed information of this and other EVAs, refer to the EVA Report.

Tomorrow's Plan: Tomorrow is scheduled calls for a non-sim day. We expect the arrival of Crew 28 in the afternoon, at which time we will proceed with the transition and training process. Additionally, members of the crew will have the freedom to conduct personal activities and complete the Human Factors Experiment by taking the "Personal and Group Functioning Survey" and the Cogstate computerized test.

Daily Reports: The following reports should be in by 21:30.

1. Commander's Check In (this report) -- Alejandro R. Diaz
2. XO/Journalist Report -- William McCarthy
3. GreenHab Report -- James Russell/Peter Collins
4. Engineering Report -- James Russell/Peter Collins
5. EVA Report -- Bill Foltyn