We have had an exciting day on analogue Mars! We had our morning meeting at 8:00 am to discuss the day's plans. Mark informed us he did not quite feel up for going on his drilling EVA today and so we decided to take our second and final shot at getting an EVA team to Factory Butte within the simulation constraints. The EVA was successful and reached Factory Butte within the required time. Unfortunately due to the long distance, the team could only survey the sight briefly.

Adding to the excitement, our main computer has gone down with some kind of power problem. Fortunately Joan was able to get one of the Hab laptops connected to the web but our network is down. Don appeared from out of the Martian landscape and may have saved us with another computer power supply. NASA definitely needs to get a Don for the real mission.

In addition, our 3 functional backpacks have ceased to be as functional as they once were. We will work on them tonight to revive them. The failures appear to be a combination of mechanical and electrical problems. We believe we can fix them using spare parts within the Hab.

We had our evening meeting tonight at 6:15 pm to discuss the current state of operations. Everyone will be busy tonight. We will do our best to get our normal reports to you.

At 8:00 pm Dave, Simone and Elia will be having an online meeting with the rover support team to discuss their long distance EVA with the rover. This EVA will either happen on Friday or possibly tomorrow if Mark wants to wait another day.