MDRS Crew 77
Feb. 15, 2009 - Feb. 28, 2009
Daily Crew Reports

Name	Speciality
Bernard Foing	Commander / Instrumentation / Researcher (Mars-Moon-Earth science and exploration)
Pascale Ehrenfreund	Executive Officer / Crew Scientist / Researcher (astrobiology, planetary, astronomy) / Health Safety Officer
Ludivine Boche-Sauvan	Crew Engineer / Logistics Coordinator/ Database manager / Researcher (human base aspects) / Food study contact
Cora Thiel	Crew Scientist / Researcher (biologist)
Christoph Gross	Crew Scientist / Researcher (geochemistry, XRD, Raman)
Lorenz Wendt	Crew Scientist / Researcher (geophysics, drilling, robotics)
Pooja Mahapatra	Crew Engineer

Bernard Foing	Prof. Bernard H. Foing is a Space Scientist and Explorer. He is Chief Scientist and Senior Research Coordinator at ESA, Research and Scientific Support Department, ESTEC. Born in France, he was admitted at Ecole Normale Supérieure of Education & Technology. He became Professor Agrégé of Physical sciences. He obtained a PhD on Astrophysics and Space Techniques using a sounding rocket ultraviolet camera experiment at CNRS, with research stays in the US (Palo Alto, Sacramento Peak, Boulder, Harvard Observatory). He worked 3 years in Chile as astronomer for ESO European Southern Observatory, the French embassy, and as Professor of Astrophysics. Permanent researcher at CNRS Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale since 1986, he obtained the Habilitation for direction of research in 1990. He has worked at ESA Space Science Department at ESTEC since 1989, as visiting scientist, staff scientist, study scientist (SIMURIS, MORO lunar orbiter, EuroMoon polar lander), Research Unit Coordinator, Project scientist of SMART-1 (first European mission to the Moon, launched in 2003), Head of the Research Division, Chief scientist and Senior Research Coordinator. He has been active at ILEWG International Lunar Exploration Working Group, sci.esa.int/ilewg) as president (1998-2000), and now as Executive Director. He is corresponding member of the International Academy of Astronautics, member of IAF Space Exploration Committee, and Distinguished Research Professor at Florida Tech. He has been Co-Investigator of space projects such as TRC, SOHO, XMM, BIOPAN, SMART-1, Mars Express, COROT, Chandrayaan-1, Expose on the International Space Station and ExoMars. He has published over 400 articles, including 160 refereed papers, in lunar and planetary science and exploration, solar/stellar physics, astrobiology, instrumentation. He edited 16 books and organized over 50 international conferences and symposia. He likes classical, opera, jazz, music-hall and popular music. He is playing viola in various orchestras and music ensembles, and guitar and piano with singers and friends. He was involved in various expeditions over the globe, in various deserts or up to 5300 m.
Pascale Ehrenfreund	Pascale Ehrenfreund is currently Research Professor at the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs and Professor for Astrobiology at University Leiden, The Netherlands. Since 2001 she was leading the Astrobiology Laboratory at Leiden Institute of Chemistry and investigated organic matter in the interstellar medium and in solar system bodies, including planetary surfaces, comets and meteorites. She served as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on many different NASA/ESA space missions, including satellites, planetary missions and experiments on the International Space Station. Pascale Ehrenfreund is strongly involved in the development of several life detection instruments for the European Exomars mission and has performed many field test in the Atacama desert. She has organized many international conferences, and chaired research teams in Europe and in the US and authored and co-authored more than 250 publications covering a wide variety of topics. Pascale Ehrenfreund holds a masters degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Vienna, a doctorate in Astrophysics from the University Paris VII, a habilitation in Astrochemistry from the University of Vienna and a masters degree in Management & Leadership from Webster University in Leiden. Asteroid 9826 Ehrenfreund 2114 T-3 orbits currently at 2.9 AU from the Sun.
Ludivine Boche-Sauvan	Ludivine Boche-Sauvan is a student engineer with a mechanical and industrial background, who will use her technical and organizational skills during the 77th MDRS session as chief engineer, database manager and logistics coordinator added to her individual investigation on human aspects in MDRS. She is currently a Masters student in a joint degree with Arts et Métiers ParisTech (Paris, France) and GeorgiaTech (Atlanta, USA), her graduation is expected in December 2009. Ludivine's has already led a student space club, and last year she created a partnership between the Arts et Métiers and the French space agency, CNES, on project PERSEUS. She also participated in two space-related summer schools: one with the Ariane Cities Community in Heilbronn (Germany, 2007) and one with ESA and FFG in Alpbach (Austria, 2008). After two-month-training at ESA ESTEC (The Netherlands, 2008) last summer, she is now enrolled there on a master project. Her projects at ESTEC are to deal with a minimal lunar base concept (presentation at ILEWG 2008) and human-machine interfaces in a planetary base as well as supporting the organization of hands on projects. As a former sports competitor in tennis and swimming, she is always willing to give her best; and as a lifeguard and flute player previously in orchestras, she also enjoys team spirit. Last of her family but first at aiming to work in the space field, she was seduced by the combination of technical challenges, discoveries, and knowledge sharing in an intercultural atmosphere. Member of Planète Mars, the French branch of Mars Society, she is pleased to have the opportunity of experiencing such a simulation.
Cora Thiel	Cora Thiel works as a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen, Germany. She is studying cellular signaling and trafficking with the emphasis on presynaptic mechanisms during synaptic transmission. For several years she has also been involved in analyses of the influence of microgravity on immune cells, working together with Prof. Ullrich from the University of Zurich / Magdeburg during ESA and DLR parabolic flight campaigns. At MDRS she will analyze the compositition of microbial communities and is taking up the challenge of establishing a minimal molecular biology lab under Mars habitat conditions.
Christoph Gross	Christoph Gross is PhD student at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany; Institute for Geological Sciences / Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing. He graduated in Geology and Palaeontology at the FU-Berlin with main focus on marine geochemistry and economic geology. He worked a couple of years as freelancer geologist in environmental survey and hazardous waste-management programs before coming back to the University. His interests are deep sea research, hydrothermal deposits, industrial geology and mining on Earth and remote sensing, spectral data, sedimentary processes, mineralogy and geochemistry on Mars. He is working in the research program of the HGF Alliance - Planetary Evolution and Life and associated to the ESA Mars Express mission - HRSC-program.
Lorenz Wendt	Lorenz Wendt had his first contact with remote sensing when he finished his degree in geology at the University of Tübingen in Germany, where he worked on the automatic interpretation of digital elevation models (DEM's) by statistical means. After a few years of geology field work in the construction industry, he made a master's degree in photogrammetry and remote sensing in Stuttgart. Lorenz is currently a graduate student at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he deciphers the mineralogy of Mars using near infrared spectroscopic data, together with multispectral, 3D imagery from the High Resolution Stereo Camera onboard Mars Express. His research interests are both geology of Earth and Mars, and intelligent image recognition algorithms. He likes hiking, running and swimming.
Pooja Mahapatra	Pooja Mahapatra (born 18 Jan 1986) is a student of SpaceMaster, an Erasmus Mundus Master in Space Science and Technology at Luleå Tekniska Universitet, Kiruna, Sweden. Her first semester at Universität Würzburg, Germany, and internship at Fraunhofer Ernst-Mach-Institut, Freiburg, Germany, have given her exposure in designing and constructing CanSats and picosatellites. Further involvement in electronics and data processing comes from a project on fluid separation in microgravity and her Bachelor Thesis on content-based audio retrieval using audio fingerprinting. Before that, she was sponsored to IAC-2006, Valencia, Spain as a student delegate, based on a paper presentation competition. She now combines her international and multilingual background, space engineering experience and electronics and communication engineering fundamentals in a Master Thesis project at ESA in the Netherlands.

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