Time: started 18:51, completed 19:36

Weather: low 5.9c (42.6F), high of 27.4c (81.3F), clear and dry

Crew Physical Status: Focused, working together intensely for eight hours nearly non-stop. Need showers.

Narrative of Field Mission Results: Today was the first test day. The ERA traveled without joy-sticking (i.e., "autonomously") to Pooh's Corner to do reconnaissance for tomorrow's EVA by the geologists.

Now is the time of falling into routine, and the days start clicking by.

I spend an inordinate amount of time with email and processing photos. When I'm not doing that I'm checking to see that people received messages directed at them. I could use a "personal agent" to handle this for me. For example, if John Dowding didn't read an email from Gary Fisher about the GreenHab after a certain time, my agent should tell me. Or better, John's personal agent could read his email and speak on his computer an alert that a possibly important email from Gary about GreenHab has arrived. But what are the rules for the agent to follow? Surely "a message from Gary" plus "to John" plus "mentions "GreenHab" would be a good rule. This is the kind of thing we're trying to do in the Mobile Agents system--beginning first by automating EVA communications, then perhaps moving to monitoring for the life support system itself. University researchers working in this area of "agents" are already working on the email issue.

No agent is likely to select photos for me. But if the photos just showed up in a folder on my computer (no need to transfer the files and rename them) and were cataloged, that would be convenient. Such "work flow" assistance is very much like what we are doing for the crew and remote science team by using the ScienceOrganizer system to store EVA data. The time delay to Mars will make managing a shared database a bit more difficult, but it's a great way to handle distributed operations. On Mars this means inside and outside the hab. On Earth it means across organizations, such as NASA, industry, and universities--an issue MER operations is now encountering during the extended mission, with some scientists having left JPL to go home.

Our test today shows how far the Mobile Agents team has come in a year. Now it's more or less routine for us that the ERA and Brahms agents are working together, plus we almost take for granted that we had continuous computer connections from the Hab to the ERA and the MEX ATV computer in the Pooh's Corner area, about 700 m away. Today's traverse was a record for the ERA. For comparison, 600 m was a milestone for the MER rovers, which each reached after about three months. Like the MER rovers, the ERA traveled with a combination of direct paths between way points established by people (with obstacle avoidance), plus more "autonomous" "find the best path" routing (used for the trip back to the hab). I think one of the most exciting moments of the day for me was when I walked out to the ERA during its traverse, and could see very clearly from the tracks how it veered away from a pile of rocks and then easily drove over some smaller ones.

I hope Maarten will find time to detail all of the EVA communication systems accomplishments today. The high points were: ERA took two panoramas according to the plan stored in the Mobile Agents system; the panoramas were viewed immediately back in the hab by the astronauts and related to an aerial map; the astronauts recorded an interpretation and planning session for transmission to the RST. During the day, the RST received emails with URLs pointing to where the ERA's data was stored in ScienceOrganizer--a first for the Mobile Agents projects, and like last year's transmission of a photo, we believe a first in the history of exploration. (Can you imagine in the days of sailing ships, photos being transmitted and stored on a computer server in California and notifications of the data's existence sent to England? Yet that's something like what we did today.)

Of course not everything went perfectly well or this wouldn't be called a field test. We had planned on four panoramas, but generated only two. A communication error appears to have occurred that prevented the command for the third panorama from reaching the ERA. We stopped at that point and commanded the ERA to come home, partly because of the hour (about 5 hours since the ERA left the hab), and partly because we had enough data to plan tomorrow's EVA.

The ERA experienced 19 errors during that long traverse in the heat of the day, a mixture of hardware and software problems. Testing and some simple component replacements are underway. One easy fix was to raise the differential GPS base antenna to improve coverage at Pooh's Corner. Another sign of our progress was that after each fault we were able to abort the ERA's operation, restart it, and have it continue the plan--all from the HabCom workstation in the upper deck of MDRS. All along, we were receiving live video from the ERA, so we could easily tell when it was moving again. This is exactly what we want for Mars.

We had some issues in coordinating between the support team in the field and the team back in the hab. We had never done anything quite like this before for so long, under trying conditions like today's sun. We'll work on ways to automatically track the state of the network (from external point of view) and the state of the plan (hab point of view). Conditions and possible network issues will be much more challenging next week.

Dinner for the MDRS crew was another slow cooker meal, garlic chicken stew (with Cuban bread), prepared by Abby and John. We smelled this all day, but had to wait until 8 PM to eat, to leave time for planning and transmission of the plan to the RST. As the jargon goes, we are "on a tactical timeline," which for us means that this work must be done by a certain time so the RST members in England can begin their work.

Plans for Tomorrow: After several hours of preparing the geologist-astronauts with their suits and backpacks, we will recharge the batteries, and then perform an EVA to spots near Pooh's Corner that were planned this evening.

Report Transmission Schedule: Uncertain, crew gives first priority to the field tests, second to maintaining systems, third to reporting.

Maintenance: Generac coolant hose has been patched, replacement on order for installation Friday at latest; NREN's satellite generator required attention from vibration (possibly fan belt loose). Frank jacked up the hab a bit, but the jack's hydraulic cylinder requires repair. Don provided water, gasoline, diesel, and emptied the garbage. John Dowding handled all GreenHab chores.

EVA Narrative/Data/Interpretations: EVA communications systems report will cover this.

Inventory: We gave Frank a short shopping list for return no later than Sunday.

Miscellaneous: People vary in their adherence to schedules, lowering risk, and satisfying their stomach.