Haughton Mars Project Report Number: HMP-2001-0804
By: Dr. Pascal Lee
For the fifth day in a row we are engulfed in thick fog.
The fog lifted briefly this afternoon allowing 15 field
participants to depart from Haughton, including Lucas
Allakariallak, John Blitch, Brent Bos, Charles Frankel,
AC Hitch, Greg Klerkx, Larry Lemke, Arnis Mangolds, Peter
Smith, Carol Stoker, and my brother Marco. The planes
that pulled them out arrived at Haughton full of supplies.
But when it came time to fly in new participants, the
weather closed in again and they were unable to come. We
are now completely fogged in, with visibilities down to
50 meters at times.
Phase 4 transitioned smoothly to Phase 5 yesterday. Steve
and I are the only crewmembers staying on. The FMARS crew
tonight is composed of Prof Steve Braham from Simon Fraser
University (Steve is Chief Flight Engineer for the NASA
Haughton-Mars Project (HMP). He also leads the Technology
Task Force at the Mars Society), Dr Charles Cockell from
the British Antarctic Survey (Charlie is Chief Biologist on
the NASA HMP and a member of the Mars Society), Jaret Matthews
from Purdue University (Jaret is an undergraduate student in
aerospace engineering and a Collaborator on the NASA HMP. He
was selected as a FMARS crewmember for 2001 through the Mars
Society’s Call for Volunteers), Samson Ootoovak from Pond
Inlet, Baffin Island (Samson is an undergraduate student in
mechanical engineering at St Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova
Scotia ; Samson is Chief Field Assistant on the NASA HMP and has
been helping our Mars exploration efforts for three summers in a
row now ; Samson was invited to participate as an FMARS crewmember
this year in replacement of Dr Jeffrey Jones, M.D. of NASA Johnson
Space Center who was unable to attend this summer), Dr Kelly Snook
of NASA Ames Research Center (Kelly is a planetary scientist and
an aerospace engineer. She is a Co-Investigator on the NASA HMP’s
Exploration Research Program and is a Mars Society member), and
myself.
“Stumpy”, DARPA’s portable robot rover just deployed from
the Purmacat “mother rover” at “Site 1”.
(Photo by Charles Cockell – 010803-1509)
Yesterday the Phase 5 crew began its research activities with a
simulation of a crew-teleoperated robotic reconnaissance mission.
We drove a rover in teleoperation mode to so-called “Site 1”, an
area chosen for its scientific potential earlier in the week by the
Science Operation team at NASA Ames Research Center on the basis
of precursor remote sensing data and simulated lander data (panoramic
imaging). Our task was to carry out a more in-depth reconnaissance of
Site 1 by teleoperation, in preparation for an eventual EVA to that
area.
In addition to conducting a crew-supervised robotic reconnaissance
of Site 1, the new concept investigated in our experiment was that of
the “robotic marsupials” as John Blitch describes it: the rover we
drove to the field site was itself carrying another smaller
rover (possibly one among several others) that would be deployed once
the general area of the field site was reached to conduct more specialized
or detailed exploration activities at the selected site. It is somewhat
like the Mars Pathfinder Lander/Sojourner Rover scenario, except that the
“lander” is itself a large rover and the whole system is now being
teleoperated without time delay by a crew on Mars.
Jaret Matthews drives off in the fog with John Blitch in the “Purmacat”.
(Photo by Charles Cockell – 010803-1498)
The simulated mother rover we used was Jaret Matthews’s “Purmacat”
(a cool-looking 6-wheeled ATV that can be either teleoperated or driven by
a human) while the baby it carried was John’s tiny robotic rover from DARPA,
which we named “Stumpy”. In order to implement the simulation, Kelly served
as teleoperator on board the Hab, viewing a live video feed from the rovers
in the upper deck of the FMARS. Jaret drove the Purmacat in response to voice
control inputs radioed by Kelly. Meanwhile John rode alongside Jaret in the
Purmacat, panning and tilting the Purmacat’s video camera and deploying
“Stumpy” on a “leash” (tether) as specified over the radio by Kelly.
The experiment was interesting and produced much food for thought.
Site 1 was characterized as well as we could given the fog. The request
from the Sci Ops team for more robotic reconnaissance observations at
this site was satisfied. In addition, the deployment of Stumpy as a
mobility system that is a satellite to a larger one provided good
baseline data for our studies of crew-teleoperated exploration in that
mode.
Dr Kelly Snook teleoperates the Purmacat and Stumpy rovers
by voice commands radioed to Jaret Matthews (steerer of the
Purmacat) and to John Blitch (steerer of Stumpy and mover
of the video cameras on the two rovers). Kelly is viewing
on the laptop screen what the rover cameras can “see”.
(Photo by Pascal Lee – 010803-0001)
Today, the crew conducted station keeping activities and met to plan
an EVA to Site 10, 4 kilometers north-northeast of the Hab. The EVA
site was suggested by the Sci Ops team at NASA ARC and will be performed
as soon as possible. The distance to the target site and the amount of
time we would like to spend there are such that the establishment of a
cache of supplies will be necessary. We plan to mark the midway cache
site with a trailer we will leave in place and pick up on the way back.
We will assume that the trailer has 4 supplementary oxygen tanks with 2
hours of usable oxygen in each.
I also found my computer to be infected by a virus today which required
that a substantial part of the morning be spent in a virus hunt and kill.
Thanks to Steve however, the fix was successful and the system is now back
to flight status. Jaret spent some time today replacing the axles on his
Purmacat with more sturdy ones. Also, our new generators have arrived and
we are now running on diesel.
Fog fills Haughton Crater. View out the FMARS upper deck
southeast window.
(Photo by Pascal Lee 010805 – 1)
As I sign off tonight, the fog is at its thickest, and the views out our
windows are both bleak and eerie. Some places on Mars, like the beautiful
maze of canyons of Noctis Labyrinthus in the far western part of Valles
Marineris, also experience fog. Fog generally happens when relatively moist
air comes in contact with colder ground. Tonight, as fog fills Haughton
Crater, I wonder if humans on Mars will one day see fog roll in out the
windows on their habitat.
