Greetings Earth from the Pisces One Expedition, Crew 35 at the Mars Desert Research Station. The Pisces One team began to arrive on Friday at Space Landing Complex Utah, (Salt Lake City airport eh!) with the arrival of Crew Scientist Dr. Anthony Francis followed later in the evening by myself, Hugh S. Gregory, the Mission Commander (who is also Pisces One's Crew Astronomer), here to initiate Project M.O.S.S. - Musk Observatory Supernova Search.

Saturday morning saw the usual restocking requests from Crew 34, the "Junkyard Wars" engineering refit team which Anthony and I filled expediently using Anthony's rental car. We returned to our airport hotel to find the Pressurized Exploration Rover (MDRS "Big Blue" crew cab truck) waiting for us with the broken down primary generator sitting in the back.

As no delivery instructions were included, there was a mad scramble to find access to the internet to get instructions where it was to be delivered to before we headed south for the HAB. Crew 34 also made a further request for much needed engineering supplies which would allow Paul and his refit team to set up a large capasity feed for both generators to eliminate the traditional 4 times daily refueling cycles.

The drive down to Hanksville was an adventure all to itself and details are Anthonys "EVA 0 - Unscheduled EVA Report"

We started Day 01 with our local support chap Don Foutz escorting us up the proper road to the HAB at 07:00, just in time for breakfast. The drive in was a spectacular affair as the scenery changed from that of Earth to analogue Mars as we crested the ridge onto the southern Utah high plateau desert. We were both simultaniouly exhausted from our long night's walking and excited to finally be here. After breakfast we were given a brief orientation tour, chatted with departing members of Crew 34 and were both ordered to bed by Crew 34's Assistant Engineer (and the baker of the HAB's best apple pies) Artemis.

Hugh surfaced 3 hours later to give Paul a hand with his engineering work and Anthony came to life about 5 hours later and promptly went to work on the HAB's LAN system.

Late in the day we had a visit from Col. John Barainea who worked on the assembly of MDRS and was a part of Crew Zero who had come down follow up on some on going research of his. He was very impressed by the improvements the "Junkyard Wars" crew had made to the station.

Supper was a supurb Indian cuisine assembled by both Artemis and Anthony followed by us starting in on the first day's reports. This was interupted an instant message from Don in Hanksville that Adam and Felipe had arrived. It had been decided to welcome them "in-sim" so this announcement send the two commanders diving for the Surface Excursion Prep Room. There Paul and I suited up in under 20 minutes (Hugh for the first time) in our analogue Surface Excursion Pressure Suits, to carry out what is believed to be the first ever joint EVA by two different crews, to welcome Pisces One's 2IC (XO) and Crew Doctor to MDRS.

We then entered the airlock for the 5 minute depress cycle and exited on the surface of analogue Mars just as our local contact Don drove into the HAB staging area. Thus Felipe and Adam drove around the corner in Big Blue to see the Moon lite HAB gleaming in the night and to find two fully Surface Excursion Suited analogue Mars-nauts guiding them into the Pressurized Rovers docking bay.

Their luggage was first passed inside with Artemis in charge of the airlock and then Hugh and Adam followed by Paul and Felipe cycled thru into the HAB, with a proper 1 minute delay to simulate repressurisation. After de-suiting of me and Paul and showing our newly arrived Pisceans where the basic facilities were, they were shown up stairs for a welcoming meal.

At this time I turned to Paul, thanked him for the great job the refit team had done at MDRS and said "I relieve you, sir". Paul handed over the keys to the station and to Felipe his HSO keys and said "Thank you sir, I am relieved". The Pisces One Expedition had commenced "in-sim" operations as Crew 35 of the Mars Desert Research Station.

Due to the staggered and late arrival of various Pisces team personal, Paul offered to continue the hand over briefings in the morning and we accepted. We packed Adam and Felipe off to bed to sleep of their jet lag and Hugh, Anthony and Kevin stayed up to finish off their first mission reports.

Tomorrow we will assist Paul & Artemis in the final work of the Engineering refit, as well as helping then pack up their gear. Then Paul will give us basic ATV training and we will suit up Adam, Anthony, Felipe and Kevin for their first walking EVA.

Good night from analogue Mars