This is our seventh day on Mars. We enjoy the fantastic landscape that we can see when we look out through the windows.

Nevertheless, the problems with the Greenhab still exist. At least we have checked all the electrical connections - even though all the pumps are working, there is no water in the tank for dirty water. Another reason for this could be that our use of fresh water is too little. Yesterday we consumed approximately 12 gallons of fresh water. The less water we consume, the less water we will need to refill the tanks of the Greenhab, and as a result, less dirty water will pumped back into the toilets flushing.

Today we have planed two more EVAs. The first one should have started at 11:00 a.m. But because a TV team is here again and has shot different angles of us suiting up, the start time was delayed for more than one hour. (I have to speak with our media spokesman Tom, telling him that he should request that the TV team work more in the background.)

EVA team number 09 with Patrick as EVA Commander and Tom Dirlich drove to Ruediger's Hill (named in honor to our pet, Puma Ruediger). They started three new drillings, two of which were successful. But this EVA was accompanied by a lot of technological problems. At very first, the team had problems starting the ATVs. And from the beginning of the EVA, Tom's helmet was fogged by his breath. A few minutes after the start of EVA 09, the GPS stopped working correctly and finally it died completely. Last but not least, our digital camera died too. So we have a lot of to repair work tomorrow. The team was very happy when Tom accidentally found the lost heart rate monitor close to one of the drilling points. The TV crew followed the EVA team with a four-wheel drive car into the dusty desert -- and got stuck. For a couple of minutes the MDRS crew stopped the simulation and Patrick drove over to the TV team with shovels and helped them get free.

During this time, Heike and Klaus prepared for another EVA -- Number 10. It was their job to cover the pipe from the fresh water tank to the Habitat with heat isolation material. The temperatures at our landing side went down to minus 12 centigrade during the night, and part of the pipe was not isolated. The result of this cold in the past few days was that we could not refill the internal fresh water tank.

It was no problem to cover the pipe being dressed in a spacesuit. Sure, to do that job it was not necessary for an EVA. But if anything must be repaired on a real spacecraft, the astronauts will have to do that dressed in a suit. So it was a simulation experiment.

45 minutes after we covered the pipe, we decided to walk up onto the rim behind the Habitat. On the way up the rim, we found some excellent places for sampling, and probably the home of Ruediger.

We have the possibility of getting a new pillow balloon resupplied from Mission Support in order to continue our tests. It is interesting that the radio contact with EVA 10 was lost when the team walked through a canyon just 200 meters away from the Habitat. We have experienced that when radio contact is lost between HabCom and an EVA team by a landform, one of the team members can be placed on a hill between the Habitat and the EVA team, the contact becomes clearer. The crewmember's radio is used as an antenna to amplify the radio signals. So it would be great if we could have a new pillow balloon -- we could hang a radio underneath the pillow and use it as radio amplifier.

The first "space sick" crew member Horst Gehrmann recovers more and more from the flu. He is feeling better and once again is joining the team while he is oscillating between Hanksville and MDRS. His new job is to help with the logistics.

There is a lot of to do here on Mars, so lets get to it.

Have a good time on Earth.