Planned Projects and Tasks

• Drilling Project:
  As one of our main activities will do some drilling experiments. Our aim is to develop the procedure for sampling with a hand drill in an EVA suit. For this purpose we do simple geological drillings and document the occurring problems and the timescale in which the different tasks can be done. The gathered samples will be documented by pictures and sent together with the MASSE-Samples (see description below) to the Carnegie Institute, Washington for further investigations.
  
  This experiment is based on a concept of Dr. V. Mang (Astrium, Bremen). German version of the concept.
  
  
• MASSE Project:
  There will be gathered several samples for the MASSE-Project, Dr. Markus Landgraf (ESA, Darmstadt) performed on the FMARS last year. MASSE (Microarray Assay for Solar System Exploration) is an instrument developed by The Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institute of Washington to autonomously perform the analysis of samples collected by the Lander or a rover. These samples will be gathered at exposed rocks using basic geological instruments like hammer, chisel or sledge hammer. This work will be documented in the same way like the drilling experiments.
  
  Report of the MASSE-Project by Dr. Markus Landgraf. (Adobe Acrobat format)

Further tasks:

• Get an overview of the landscape
• Collecting geological samples
• Get an overview of former crews work
• Mapping program
  There is the possibility to use a mapping program. Crew 12 worked with it and the results are fine. We planned to combine our balloon experiment with the mapping program. This is now canceled due to losing the balloon.

First results:
EVA-6 did the first successful drilling and separated after documentation the core in samples of 10cm.

Sand w/coarse grains up to 0,5 cm

sand w/coarse grains up to 0,3 cm

reddish silt sand

silt sand

clayey sand

clayey sand

The samples were photographed and described in the Hab's laboratory. They stayed sealed and will be marked more accurate, which was not possible because of the gloves.

The samples gathered on EVA 7 will be documented tomorrow in our planned outside "laboratory", which will be a superfluous table from the inside Hab. There the samples brought by EVA teams will be placed and investigated by the geologist.

Additionally I found some pieces of petrified wood and supposed dinosaur bones in the surrounding of the Hab, which were obviously collected by former crews. Great event, my first fossils seen here! We will search the described fossil sites and the whole crew wants to visit it soon.