We’re sitting with Grzegorz in the airlock… The airlock is down, no power in the base. Dark… Maybe two minutes of oxygen left… Both hatches are locked…

16 hours before

Meteorite shower destroyed the primary power supply of the habitat, and we were woken up by the emergency system. Standard procedure in such a situation, as described in the manual and trained, is to switch to the backup power supply, disable all of the experiments, send repair drones, contact MCC, and keep the life support systems powered as long as possible, either until the repair or death, whatever comes first.

We did so.

5 hours before

Repair drones were able to fix the primary power supply and we’re getting online again, overviewing the state of the base and trying to find out the scale of the damages. It looks like the habitat is fine, but we scheduled emergency EVA to assure that the external structure is untouched. This will mark the 14th EVA during our mission and the fifth for me and Grzegorz.

3 hours before

Getting prepared for the EVA. Perform the medical checkup, put the suit on, check the oxygen and power levels, check the communication. We’re almost doing it automatically, like a normal walk on Earth. At some point you may treat this as boring and routine.

You can’t do that.

2 hours before

Decompression is over.

“Habitat EVA, you are GO for the EVA”
“Copy Habitat, we’re GO for the EVA. Opening the hatch”
“Copy EVA, you’re opening the hatch”
“EVA Habitat, the hatch is opened”
“Copy EVA, the hatch is opened”

We’re checking the habitat structure. It takes some time, but it looks fine. We found out some meteorite debris nearby the base, we’re using the Modernity to grab the samples.

Having samples in boxes, we turn off the rover. We’re going back to the airlock.

“EVA Habitat, the airlock is closed”
“Copy EVA, the airlock is closed. Airlock compression started”

Now

No power in the base. The crew is trying to pressurise the airlock manually and open the internal hatch. We’re sitting with Grzegorz in the airlock… It’s getting cold and dark… Maybe two minutes of oxygen left…

“Over…”