Date and time: 1 May 2012
Written by: Haritina Mogosanu, Crew 118, Commander
Kia Kaha on a great morning from Mars!
At 0520 hours this morning we started the third and last experiment of the Operation Antipodes, Antipodes 3 where we simulated loss of contact from Aouda.X space suit located in Dachstein /Austria and their Cap-Com Mission Control. KiwiMars 2012 acted as Mission Control for the duration of the experiment with support from Wellington Mission Control and our Flight Director Mr Elf Eldridge.
Snapshot 1- See through Aouda.X helmet video-camera. The person in white is the assistant for the suit-tester
Antipodes is an operations experiment, where we assume a loss of communication between the Mission Support Centre on “Earth”; a parallel landing party on the other side of Mars takes over the coordination of an ongoing Extra-Vehicular Activity via their Habitat, relayed via a satellite in Martian orbit.
Participants
KiwiSpace crew at the Mars Desert Research Station, Utah, Commander Haritina Mogosanu
Kiwispace Mission Control Centre, MacDiarmid Institute, Wellington/New Zealand, Flight Director Mr Elf Eldridge
OeWF field team, Dachstein caves, Austria
Snapshot 2 - Aouda.X collecting contaminated ice under the direction of CapCom - KiwiMars from MDRS
Scenario
After losing the communication to “Earth” (e.g. satellite is out-of-range), a request is sent to the MDRS and/or MCC Wellington to take over operations for an ongoing experiment within the cave. The telemetry data are relayed to MDRS / MCC Wellington for approximately 30 min.
ANTIPODES 3 (MDRS directs Aouda.X)
Click here for details of the experiment at the science site.
Tue, 01May2012, 1400 hrs (DS) = 0600 hrs (MDRS) = 0000 hrs (NZ)
The operation was a success as we relayed our commands directly from MDRS to the Aouda.X suit tester in Dachstein, Austria. We had voice contact via Mumble and Video contact with the camera on the space suit (attached two snap shots taken during the exercise). The two 'parties' landed on Mars cooperated successfully in this world-first event of its kind.
ENDS.