Crew Status: Crew is in good spirits and we are now n the middle of our Yuri's Night celebration. Steve's Mom's oatmeal chocolate cookies and the Stolli have done wonders on our attitude, after a long day.

Daily Recap: Plans for today were derailed when our local support, Don arrived while we had shut down the China Special generator to deal with yesterday's fuel leak. Don examined the faulty air filter and decided that a total shut-down of the system was in order, as the unit had been running for sometime with inadequate air filtration.

We decided to switch to Lil Genny, the backup unit. Its battery was dead, so I used one of my 12vdc deep cycles I brought along for my work. After 30 minutes of cranking without start, we decided that we need another generator. I documented the China Special's air filter damage on digital images. I then followed Don to town to connect to Mission Support with an update of our situation, and forwarded the images to the engineering team.

Returning to the Hab we re-evaluated our plans for the day, and went into "battery mode." I had brought along several batteries and 12vdc to 110vac inverters, so we made plans to integrate this system into our operations and scale things back power-wise. Greg and Alyssa in the meantime ran extensive tests of the Hab wiring with a multimeter I brought along. This turned out to be very productive, as it gave them an insight into the Hab's power grid.

After several hours, Don arrived with a backup generator, and we assisted in loading up the two non-functional units into his truck to haul in for repair. Don worked for more than an hour with the Crew 28 engineering team, and together they got the system up and running. Fuel consumption on this gasoline unit was unknown, so we have been taking fuel measurements every four hours to gauge consumption.

During this time we welcomed Leonard David from Space.COM and his wife Barb who had traveled from Colorado to join us for the Yuri's Night celebration. We also had a short visit by friends of Brent Garry of Crew 29, the Nottinghams from New York, who are visiting Utah.

Tomorrow's Plan: Due to our generator problem, we have moved our schedule up one day. For tomorrow, we will continue with our pre-sim training, involving a basic lesson in orienteering by our resident GPS expert, Steve Featherstone and basic Mars Suit preparation. We also plan to setup and start the salad machine hydroponic systems, with seeds sprouted on Saturday. We plan to enter full sim day after tomorrow on Wednesday, a day behind schedule.

Daily Reports: The following reports should be in as soon as power is restored.

1. Commander's Check In (this report) -- Gus Frederick
2. Journalist Report -- Steve Featherstone
3. GreenHab Report -- Kathleen Johnson
4. Engineering Report -- G. Drayer & A. Rzeszutko