Crew roles
From HabLife
Crew roles are important to divide the workload and have a clear line for who is responsible for what. Including the health, even to some extend the lives, of the crewmembers.
A typical MDRS crew consists of six people. Typical crew roles include Commander, Executive Officer (ExO), Health and Safety Officer (HSO), Crew Geologist, Crew Biologist, and Chief Engineer. The duties associated with each of these positions are outlined below. In addition to each person’s specific duties, it is essential that crewmembers are cross-trained in several different disciplines and are able to assist other crewmembers with additional duties.
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Commander
- Overall responsibility for the crew and operations
- Establish the roles of the Executive Officer and Health and Safety Officer.
- make sure that information flows to the crew and to you are clear to everyone. In order for not having any misunderstandings with Mission Support.
- organise the reporting of all the reports each night.
Send a commander check-in reports by 8pm each night to confirm all is well. Same for the Engineering report to be in by 8PM.
Send commander, science, EVA and other reports by 9pm each night
- Assign one crewmember to collect all crew images taken each day (if desired) to maintain a centralized image database
- Familiarize the crew with ATV operations prior to first in-sim EVA
- Hold evening and morning meetings to organize crew activities.
- Identify problems and delegate tasks to crewmembers.
- Prioritize activities and maximize use of daylight hours.
- Gather short biographies and an image of each crewmember.
- Assign one crewmember to maintain EVA suits
- Assign one crewmember to maintain ATVs
- Create dinner cooking and cleaning schedule
- Create shower schedule.
XO
The Executive Officer (XO) is second in command during the mission.
Therefore, if the Commander is incapacitated or unavailable, the XO assumes all Commander duties.
Crew Scientist
Crew Biologist
The Crew Biologist has prime responsibility for developing the biology goals for the mission. Based on these science goals, the Crew Biologist also has prime responsibility for planning field EVAs and subsequent laboratory analysis to achieve these objectives. The Crew Biologist must also document all work and findings to report to Mission Support each evening. The Crew Biologist works with the Remote Science Team (RST) in all stages of the project.
Crew Geologist
The Crew Geologist has prime responsibility for developing the geology goals for the mission. Based on these science goals, the Crew Geologist also has prime responsibility for planning field EVAs and subsequent laboratory analysis to achieve these objectives. The Crew Geologist must also document all work and findings to report to Mission Support each evening. The Crew Geologist works with the Remote Science Team (RST) in all stages of the project.
Crew Astronomer
You are not allowed to use the Musk Observatory
- unless you have completed the training and
- have thus obtained permission from the Astronomy Coordinator or the Astronomy XO.
How to do the training you can find here
Crew Journalist
The Chief Engineer has prime responsibility for maintaining all systems necessary for routine Hab operations. This includes the power, water, electrical, plumbing, ATV, and Greenhab systems. The Chief Engineer is responsible for completing the Engineering Report that is sent to Mission Support each evening. The Chief Engineer also works with the remote engineering team to ensure safe and functional operations of the Hab systems.
Health & Safety Officer (HSO)
The Health and Safety Officer (HSO) is responsible for maintaining the health and safety of the crew.
The HSO must conduct a practice telemedicine session with the Earth-based Flight Surgeon assigned to the mission upon arrival at MDRS.
HSO must collect medical information from each crewmember
which will remain in the locked medical box for the duration of the mission and only will be opened in emergency situations.
HSO must respond to any crew injuries and/or emergency situations.
HSO also maintains control of the medicine lock box which is only to be opened upon instruction from the Flight Surgeon.
At the start of the crew rotation the HSO conducts a test of the telemedicin connections with the Flight Surgeon.
The Health and Safety Officer is the member of the crew that is in charge of preserving the vigor of the crew. While they are not necessarily going to perform any medical treatment, they will be involved in telemedicine. Telemedicine is the major form of medicine used in rural areas throughout the United States and other countries world wide.
Basically, telemedicine involves communication with a remote MD, EMT, nurse practitioner, or other medically certified personnel (the crew’s Flight Surgeon) via internet. In the case that an injury does occur, communication between the HSO and the FS will commence. If the injured crew member is able to communicate with the FS then they will be doing the majority of the emailing, however, if the crew member is not physically able to talk to the FS, than the HSO will do the communication. At the beginning of the rotation, a dry run of the telemedical support session will be completed.
An example of a telemedicine session:
HSO Sends via email
Subject: Initiating Telemedical Conference
Body of Text: Initiating Telemedical Conference
FS Sends (within 10 minutes)
Subject: Responding to Test
Body of Text: [FS Name] here, responding as Telemedical Support. Go Ahead.
HSO Sends
Subject: Concluding Test of Telemedical System
Body of Text: Just a test. Concluding test of Telemedical Support System
FS Sends
Subject: Concluding Test of Telemedical System
Body of Text: Concluding Test of Telemedical System. Thank you.
This is an example of the preliminary test of the system. The subjects and bodies of text will change depending on the circumstance.
HabCom
The HabCom can have various tasks:
Besides being the one to monitor your crew members, when they are out on EVA, or even outside doing engineering tasks,
is also making sure every drinks enough and regularly.
Sending out a message telling everyone to hydrate every 15 minutes will be helpful in this.
The radios taken on EVAs do not have much range. Resulting in loosing contact with EVAcrews too soon.
Radio repeaters hanging from helium filled balloons could help extending the HabCom range.
When the EVA crew is within radio range, it is helpful for them having the HabCom transmit time signals on the voice
channel every ten to fifteen minutes. It will help them to return to the hab in time.
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