We had our morning meeting today at 8:00 am to discuss the day's plans, primarily EVA #6 to Red Canyon.

The EVA team was led by me for the first time (this was also my first MDRS EVA) with Simone and Joan accompanying me. This was primarily a recon EVA to Red Canyon with the secondary goal of picking up interesting samples for Simone and Elia's biology experiment. I also deployed some dust sampling containers around the Habitat to see what dust rains out of the sky during a 24 hour period. The EVA lasted 4 hours and 16 minutes and covered 29 km. We came within less than 1 km of Red Canyon before running into a stream. This desert stream actually had water in it. Interaction with running, liquid water is not very Mars-like and so the EVA ended there. The view was spectacular and we verified the canyon is appropriately named.

Mark, Petra, Elia and Dave stayed in the Habitat. Petra and Mark worked together on a water contamination study. Everyone followed the exercise protocol, except for Elia who will do it tonight.

We again had our evening meeting at 6:00 pm to try and give everyone enough time to write their reports and prepare for tomorrow's tasks. An EVA led by Mark using the pressurized rover to transport his drilling equipment to various sites will be the primary task we will all be supporting tomorrow. Mark predicts 4 hours. I'm thinking it will be more like 7.

Everyone is in good spirits and has settled into a routine. Some are still probably not getting enough sleep and struggle to make the 8:00 am meeting. But we are all trying to be good simulation astronauts.