Getting to the heart of the mission: exploring the lunar surface.
The second day of the Hana Hou mission, currently ongoing in the HI-SEAS habitat on Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii, is also coming to an end. We are happy to share with you some updates from the crew to give you an account of the activities that kept the astronauts busy on this day on the Moon!
The astronauts faced their first night inside the HI-SEAS habitat, which is owned by the International MoonBase Alliance. Each astronaut has their own individual crew quarters for sleeping and leisure. The first night at the base went smoothly and the astronauts woke up refreshed, ready to face the second day of the mission. The day’s schedule was intense, in fact planning an extravehicular activity to observe the surface surrounding the habitat. The volcanic zone is indeed full of lava tubes of different sizes and characteristics. Some of them require crawling in order to be explored, while others are larger in size and allow astronauts to venture inside in a standing position. The existence of lava tubes in the terrain surrounding the habitat makes the area an accurate analog, which recreates lunar and Martian conditions. Descending into the lava tubes with EVA suits allows for testing operations, procedures, and instruments in a realistic environment. However, because of the recent lava flows the crew did not descend into the lava tubes but limited their exploration to observing their entrances from the outside.
After social moments over breakfast, the crew prepared for the EVA. Today’s EVA took place in the surface area closed to a place called “Skylight #6.” The astronauts donned the necessary equipment to venture outside the base safely: gloves, helmets, suit and boots. The exploration lasted for about two hours. Five crew members ventured outside, while one of them remained inside the base, according to protocol, serving as Cap Com. There was no shortage of time to document the steps taken through photographs and videos, which fed into the mission database. Once back close to the base, the astronauts took the chance to take some short tests with one of the two drones they brought for the mission. The test was limited to verifying the operation of the drone and learning how to fly it efficiently for future analysis.
In the afternoon, the crew devoted themselves to intravehicular activities. Different work was done individually by each crew member. Brent Reymen and Celia Avila Rauch were in charge of monitoring the psychological testing of the crew, Serena Crotti and Bernard Foing were in charge of reviewing the outreach database, Kato Clayes worked on preparing for the upcoming missions, and Commander Henk Rogers experimented by building an experiment that he will conduct tomorrow in the next EVA.
This is all from the EMMIHS 2023 Hana Hou Mission! Stay tuned for upcoming updates!
THE EMMIHS 2023 CAMPAIGN IS ORGANIZED AS A COLLABORATION BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL MOONBASE ALLIANCE (IN ITS HI-SEAS HABITAT) AND LUNEX EUROMOONMARS, WITH SUPPORT OF EUROSPACEHUB ACADEMY.
EUROSPACEHUB IS FOUNDED BY VILNIUSTECH, INTERNATIONAL SPACE UNIVERSITY, COMPLUTENSE UNIVERSITY OF MADRID, COLLABWITH, LUNEX FOUNDATIONS AND FUNDED BY THE EIT HEI INITIATIVE LEAD BY EIT MANUFACTURING & EIT RAW MATERIALS.