At approximately 5:30 this morning, I heard the sound of beeping UPS units in the living quarter deck. Shortly thereafter the beeping intensified and I could no longer hear the generator, and I immediately got up to verify that the master breaker had not been thrown and that the noise of the generator was not audible. The time was 5:45. I dressed, grabbed my flashlight, leatherman and digital camera, and tried to contact mission support. Once again we had internet problems caused by the hub dropping off of the network, which I corrected to get us back on line. (We have definitely decided the switch must be on the UPS in case of an emergency!). Once the network was available I awoke the XO. We discussed the problem briefly, and then I awoke Hugh while Adam got his gear. Hugh authorized us to inspect the generator. We took two radios and headed out into the night while Hugh attempted to get through to Don or Tony.

The generator was not functioning at all. We examined it, trying to consider if there were any actions we took during the oil change and jury-rigged refit yesterday that could have caused a failure. We began a visual inspection of the engine and shortly thereafter Adam found a small shard of metal. Further inspection revealed more, including a 2-by-3 inch chunk with a crack in it that looked to my untrained eye like metal fatigue. We then began examining the engine for more problems, and I found a hole in the engine just behind the starter about 2 inches across. We alerted Hugh, who asked us to take digital photographs. My camera was already out and Adam, who has a similar model, instructed me on the use of its extreme closeup option to get good shots of the failure. We then returned inside.

We contacted mission support, and Don Foutz informed us that he'd gotten Paul and Tony on the line and that a replacement generator would be available by 3. Because we had a missing crewmember, we bagged the largest generator fragment, packed up clothes, notebooks, and laptops, and headed to the Whispering Sands. Before we left, Hugh suggested we take photos of the engine failure in the light, and while we were out there we found an even larger hole. Hugh suggested that a bearing failed and then the spinning engine tore itself apart, breaking two holes in the crankcase.

In short: catastrophic engine failure.

Don provided us a room at the Whispering Sands and headed off to Grand Junction to pick up a replacement generator. While there we showed him the fragment and the digital images, Don nodded and said they'd been expecting that failure for some time --- in fact, since they bought the China Special generator.

After setting up a remote command center in the room, the team caught up on rest to allow our sick crew member to recuperate while I worked on yesterday's Engineering report. When everyone was feeling more rested, I discussed the state of the Hab with the XO/HSO and we both suggested that this was a very serious issue. Hugh had earlier pointed out that the hums in the power could have been caused by the engine not running smoothly; if we had gone to investigate this when the problem was occurring Adam or I could easily have gotten a face full of crank case. Adam suggested that we may want to have an accident investigation of the engine, and I do not want to authorize a return to the Hab until we do a complete safety survey of the Hab systems and ensure that we're not going to get killed by our analog Martian home. Upon hearing our suggestions, Hugh said "Corrr-ect!" --- he himself had expressed concern over the safety issues yesterday during our crew conference.