Time: started 19:23, completed 20:21

Weather: low 6c (42.8F) high of 10.6c (51.1F), partly cloudy and windy

Crew Physical Status: Enthused and happy. Ready for a big dinner and relaxing evening.

Brief Narrative of Field Mission Results: Today was a different day. What an exciting time we had! The Mobile Agents system was exhaustively tested in a simulated EVA with Abby and Brent acting as geologist-astronauts, going to Pooh's Corner some 500 m away, and all along the ERA with its science cart followed them and provided helpful assistance.

The day began with the usual debrief outside, but instead of intense hot sun, it felt like MDRS had been transported to the Arctic in July -- the sky mostly cloudy, temperatures in the mid-40s (F), a cool WNW breeze, and moisture in the air. It was invigorating, and reminded me of how the often harsh weather and isolation of Devon Island intensifies the feeling that we really have landed on another planet.

I suppose that's what I like most about this place: The feeling that our group is running its own show. We have this facility, this landscape, and all our tools to do what we know best, for great purposes. And we are succeeding.

After the debrief, the team began a few hours of further testing and setting up the astronauts in their suits for the EVA. I greeted our visitors from Ames' public affairs office, what I've come to recognize as the classic video crew: The director-leader, the cinematographer, and the sound man (with his fluffy mop on the end of a pole). I introduced the key players and provided a good overview of our work and plan for the day.

The EVA proper ran from about 2 until 5:30 PM -- an astounding accomplishment when you consider that our longest duration last year was under an hour. The ERA followed the astronauts without flaw to Pooh's corner, and this itself was of course a real sight. We then began a full afternoon of a very complex, incredibly well coordinated test. With the ERA and Brahms command center on the upper deck of MDRS, Maarten coordinated the test from outside by radio. Rick moved the MEX ATV as necessary to maintain coverage to the astronauts and ERA.

Things became interesting rather quickly, as Brent led the ERA to the north of some hills, to get to the first work site location. We had planned on his walking around the south, and the north was at the extreme edge of our computer network coverage. But of course Brent had never been to this area before; he was proceeding from the photos and plan prepared Tuesday. And indeed, we had said to feel free to walk around and improvise. So we had to laugh at this, it is so easy to push the envelope.

Overall, the test was a huge success: ERA followed, watched (moved its camera to track the astronaut), and took a panorama. It's science cart was extremely helpful. I had to smile as I watched the astronauts reading the instruction sheets to remind themselves of available commands and different ways to phrase them. They put their samples in the box, and stored their tools in the brackets. Only the label printer disappointed us, so that's for another day.

We ran two GPS systems, one absolute (the standard coordinates received via triangulating signals from satellites), and the other "differential," an adjusted coordinate corrected by comparison to a known base antenna location back at MDRS. Brent's backpack carried the differential GPS system, so the ERA could follow and track him. However, the link to Brahms wasn't quite working, so some of his other commands (such as naming a location) weren't possible today.

Meanwhile, Abby's absolute GPS system worked fine, and she collected a variety of samples, took photos, named places, and associated these with each other. Another new feature, associating places and samples with a collection of photos, worked, too.

About an hour and a half into the EVA, Brent's personal agent alerted him that his compute battery was low. We then did a hot swap in the field, another astounding improvement, as the rest of the computers remained working and communicating with each other. The battery changed, Brent's system picked up where it left off. (We think the cold weather, as well as the intense computational load of the Brahms system contributed to the battery's relatively short life.)

During all this work, we managed to send about half the data to the Science Organizer database. There was a glitch here that we're working with our colleagues at Ames.

Abby received some health alerts from her personal agent, which we attributed to sensor placement. Other alerts for exceeding the planned duration of an activity and straying from the planned location occurred correctly.

A dozen more items could be mentioned for things that worked well and things that will require a little debugging. Somethings are procedural: As Brent worked with the ERA, Abby worked through the first five activities of the plan, completing most of the site exploration we intended. At the debriefing later we discussed the pros and cons of keeping the robot with the crew or allowing the three to separate. Also, we need to think through the voice loop protocol. Abby felt she couldn't do voice annotations when she heard Brent talking to the support crew about other issues.

We gathered everyone on the upper deck for a debriefing from 545 PM until past 630. As usual, each subteam voiced its accomplishments, frustrations, and new ideas. Prodded by the Ames crew filming the meeting to give concise summaries, we enthusiastically went around, rattling off the big moments of the day: The duration of the EVA, the participation of the ERA with the astronauts throughout, the science cart, the complex wireless computer network, and the involvement of the Remote Science Team, both in planning the EVA and in receiving data at their desktops (in San Diego, Buffalo NY, and England) throughout the afternoon.

After considerable discussion, we opted to improve the system and do local testing tomorrow afternoon and move on to Lith, rather than rerunning the EVA through. We realized we'll need a long planning discussion late tomorrow afternoon.

Dinner was delayed until past 8 PM to give Abby, Brent, and Maarten time to triage the samples and take further photos and annotations. Plus to give me time to write this report.

Dinner will be vegetable soup, augmented with round steak, and fresh bread.

Our schedule for the week was aggressive but I believe wise. Thanks to the weather we got a much needed day yesterday to slow the pace and prepare for today. Now we have accomplished the first week's objective. Tomorrow we can slow the pace again, enjoy the school visit, and prepare for next week. We're doing a good job of keeping up the sense of limited time, but not getting stressed out. At least that's my idea of how to run an expedition.

Plans for Tomorrow: Entertain the school kids in the morning, then improve the system based on what we learned today. Do another recon of Lith Canyon to determine where to place the backbone computer network repeater there.

Report Transmission Schedule: We'll have lots of reports, and plan to catch up tomorrow.

Maintenance: Toilet flush water is now properly accumulating in the supply tank, showing that changing the filter yesterday made the difference.

EVA Narrative/Data/Interpretations: See EVA, RST, and EVA communications reports.

Inventory: No problems.

Miscellaneous: Advice to geologists walking in canyons, so the GPS unit will detect five satellites: "Stay away from the walls." Topography seems to be everything.