Astronomy (Jenny): Before departing this morning, Todd gave us a tour of the Musk Observatory and informed us that the dome had not been rotating properly. Our engineers will address this issue with WD-40. Later in the day we went back out for a more thorough inspection and discovered that the USB cable that connects the CCD camera to the Musk computer is missing. Also, the STV camera would not power on even though it was plugged in. Peter Detterline has been contacted concerning these issues. If the weather clears up later tonight, we may be able to operate the telescope manually to do some observing, but this seems unlikely as it is currently raining.

Biology (Meryl): Today we washed and replanted the healthy plants and threw away the dead or unhealthy plants. We also began organizing some of the materials in the Greenhab. We will water the plants regularly (once to twice a day) for the next week, recording the amount of water in milliliters. Perhaps this record will help future crews determine exactly how much water to give the plants.

Communication and Navigation (Jan): The crew tested the range of the handheld amateur radios today. After installing a base for the magnet-mount antenna near the top hatch of the hab's domed roof, the base station inside the hab was assembled and tested as well. All elements are performing well.

However, due to unforeseen external logistics issues, the balloon, robotic climber and Helium bottles did not arrive today as expected, so balloon assembly and test have been moved to tomorrow.

Human Factors (Jan): Among the types of stress that can affect long-term crew operational success and efficiency are environmental stressors, sociological stressors, operational stressors, and structural stressors. The first typically relates to the design and condition of the environment in which the team or individual is living and working; the second, to the interaction of the crewmembers with the mission control team, with their family, and with one another; the third, to the schedule and tasks or demands of the mission itself; and the fourth, to the perceived relationship between the individual, the crew or the mission and a larger hierarchical or other structure of communication, influence or belief.

The Human Factors research participants started the Mood Observation and On-Board Dynamics (MOODY) experiment today. The MOODY experiment will look at crew mood dynamics as part of the sociological stressors. Each participating member of the station crew will note his or her subjective assessment of the general "mood" of the crew as a whole and of individual crewmembers, three times a day during the mission. This data will be compiled after the mission, resulting in a "Mood Index" tracking the crew mood development during the mission.

Radiation (Jason): A brief walking tour of the surroundings was conducted with the GPS and Gamma Scout. The carrying pouch for the GPS was put to the test, since it will be used for the in-sim EVAs. Data from today's tour will be imported and sent to mission support so that they can gain familiarity with the post-processing procedures once in sim.

Jenny Rome
MDRS Crew 47