Crew Waits Out Rain While Teams Trouble Shoot Rover Power Issues and Conduct Biomedical Research

Mission VII Update – 04.30.19
Stefan Tomovic

EVA2 was scheduled for Monday (04.29.19) at 1400 CDT but due to uncooperative weather conditions the EVA was pushed back to Tuesday. While waiting for conditions to improve the team focused on fixing MACHO Jr. and conducting biometric data for a research study.
Blood Pressure and Oxygen Saturation checks were on schedule as the Mission VII crew continues an ongoing biomedical study. Scientists at Mission Control have been monitoring the habitat residents as they seek to better understand the effects of isolation on the crew.
In the meantime, the habitat residents have been filming life inside the research laboratory. Today, Mission Specialist Peter Henson set up a GoPro in the EVA module to record the crew while donning the NDX-2AT suits prior to egress from the habitat for EVA.
Mission Specialist Jared Peick and Commander Stefan Tomovic spent some time yesterday trouble shooting the MACHO Jr Rover. During a routine test trail of the rover the video feed cut out. The crew initially suspected the problem to be with the video system but through thorough debugging the two were able to isolate the problem and trace it back to a faulty connection on the power terminal supplying the camera. MACHO Jr is set to be used during EVA2, going on its first excursion outside the habitat.
EVA2 will be conducted on Tuesday (4.30.19) at 1400 CDT. It will involve a routine habitat inspection, and soil sample collection. The soil samples are part of a microbiology experiment taking place at the planetary habitat. The study is looking to characterize and quantify microbial diversity. Conducting this form of research helps us better understand the operations necessary for microbial analysis on Mars.