First Day

by PSIP July 07, 2008 -

Hey guys! This is the Phoenix Student Interns reporting from our first day at the Science Operations Center. Phew! What a day. It all started with the daily kick-off meeting. I don't think anyone in our group knew what was going on, but it was still really interesting being a part of a NASA mission. Then our science mentor, Dr. John Hoffman, gave us a quick briefing over the TEGA portion of the mission. There is so much to know on a mission like this!

After Dr. Hoffman finished filling us in, we were off to the midpoint meeting (which is a bit of a misnomer, because it was at 9 o' clock at night). It was pretty much the same story as the kick-off meeting -- a lot of big words that went straight over our heads. We'll soak some of it in!

We had an eight minute break, and then went on to the end-of-sol science meeting (don't ask us why there are only eight minutes between the middle and the end of the day). The end-of-sol science meeting included presentations by some of the scientists about the current analyses of some of the mission data. After a five minute break (what's up with these short breaks?), we sat in on a short-term planning meeting for the upcoming sols-- a Martian day that lasts about forty more minutes than a day on Earth. Now we're sitting in the PSIP area talking to all of you guys! It's 12:30 in the morning and we won't be leaving for another dos horas. Mars time sure is exhausting! Thanks for tuning in guys.

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