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\u2018After a week at the first site, the harvest was good, but not extraordinary. Later on, not having found any meteorites at the two other sites, our morale was at its lowest point. And then, on the very last day of the mission, since the weather was good, we decided to return to the first site, but this time from the east. Taking that direction turned out to be an inspired choice: very late on in the day, we found a meteorite weighing 7.6 kilos! It\u2019s a relatively rare event to discover such a large meteorite.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To avoid contaminating it, the team was not allowed to touch the meteorite. Consequently, in order to pick it up, the scientists had to use their ingenuity and improvise a solution. They wrapped it in aluminium sheets, then in large plastic sheets, and finally in bubble wrap to protect it during transportation. Having been kept frozen since its discovery, it is now waiting to yield up its secrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vinciane Debaille has been carrying out expeditions to the Antarctic since 2015. \u2018It was at that time I began to get interested in curation. In other words, the methods of conserving the meteorites collected whilst ensuring that they remain available to the science community and future generations. With a view to a future sample collecting programme on Mars, I also joined a European thinktank project to develop ways of bringing them back to Earth and conserving them. As a result, when Mars Sample Return, a joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) project, was put on the table, I thought \u201cthat\u2019s come at the right time,\u201d convinced I had the skillset required. It was the first space mission I took part in,\u2019 she smiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On February 18, 2021, Perseverance, a robot rover capable of drilling into the soil, landed on the Mars surface, on the Jezero crater, the site of an ancient lake forming a zone propitious for the emergence of life. Since that day, Vinciane Debaille has contributed to the rover\u2019s Scientific Committee and technical operations. When it comes to opting to drill into the Martian crust in order to obtain a sample, she is the one who decides. This choice is crucial, because only 43 tubes are available (to date, around ten have been filled), and it will only be possible to bring 31 samples back to Earth during a second mission scheduled for 2033. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Initially, it had been planned that the whole of the space mission team would work together at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Lab, in California. It was meant to take place from May to July 2020. But then COVID struck so that idea fell by the wayside, and I had to remain in Belgium; I was like a fish out of water. At the beginning, it wasn\u2019t easy to adapt to the working methods, to join a remote team consisting of highly experienced space mission veterans. But, little by little, I started to feel like I belonged.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I do my work for the project at home, but on Californian time, so with a time difference of nine hours. If everything is going as it should do, I thus begin a second day of work at 17.00, but occasionally that\u2019s postponed to 21.00 or 23.00, owing to delays in satellite data arriving. And it stretches out to 03.00 or 04.00 in the morning. Whilst at the beginning it was a couple of times a week, now it takes me 2 or 3 days a month. It\u2019s a fantastic experience, but it demands numerous sacrifices!\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n To relax, Vinciane Debaille has taken up singing. She is a member of the Aequivox choir, which covers the major classics of anglophone rock by rewriting them for four voices. \u2018Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, etc., it does me a power of good to sing rock songs. There are about thirty singers on the stage, accompanied by a conductor and four musicians on the piano, electric guitar, drums and bass. We are based in Brabant Walloon, but we tour all over Belgium!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another long-standing passion: scuba-diving. \u2018I love its meditative aspect. The aquatic environment demands that you focus on something other than work. Underwater, I really switch off. I dive regularly, in particular in quarries in Belgium, and occasionally in warm seas rich in coral reefs, in Egypt or the West Indies.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, to combine relaxation and the pleasure of reading, she has treated herself to a biography of Marie Curie. \u2018I am fascinated by the Curies\u2019 discovery of radioactivity and radium. In their time, Marie and her husband only had basic instruments in comparison with the sophisticated machines we have today. If I was given the power, I would love to go and see their laboratory, to find out how they made such major scientific discoveries with practically nothing.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kingkong-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/VD-in-front-of-meteorite-cMaria-Schonbachler-660x630.jpeg\")
Space exploration mission<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Scuba diving, a rock choir and reading<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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