Friday we arrived out at the LDB site to news that made us glad we weren't working out of McMurdo. Apparently, a clog had developed at the sewage treatment plant that meant that all of McMurdo's bathrooms were essentially shut down for several hours. Out at LDB, life continued unchanged.
For the second day in a row, we came out of our 11am weather briefing hopeful for a launch the next day and began to prepare for a 2am pickup from the dorm with a launch sometime in the morning. For the second straight day, later in the afternoon our hopes were dashed. This time, we spent most of the afternoon operating under the assumption that we'd be launching the next day, so we got everything basically prepared and ready to go.
Now we're back where we were yesterday. We'll have another weather/status briefing from CSBF at 11am Saturday morning, but even if the outlook is good you never know.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Warm Weather and Waiting: December 6, 2012
Thursday, we rode out to LDB in some of the first above-freezing (~35F/2C) weather we've had since arriving.
At 11am, we had our weather briefing and status update from CSBF. At that point, it sounded like there was a good chance that we'd be launching Friday morning, and we made plans to be picked up at the dorm around 2am, with the optimal flight time being about 10am McMurdo time. This lasted about two hours. After lunch, we found out that that time wouldn't be suitable for CSBF to launch us, so we would come in at our regular time on Friday.
In the afternoon, I ran through the pre-flight checklist with Richard. Someone has run through this checklist at least once a day since we declared flight-ready, and it's helped us practice and make sure that we'll be able to do everything we need to get done on launch day. This checkout involves sending commands to the computer over our line-of-sight (LOS) antennas, and looking at the data that gets set down. We verify that we're able to turn on and control the high voltages on the instrument, that LEDs inside each detector flash (and therefore tell us that our photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) are still functioning), and that the computer is able to go back to its previous state in the event of an unexpected reboot.
In the afternoon, EBEX was outside and doing some tests that involved a cherry picker. I'm glad that Super-TIGER just has to turn on and wait for particles to fall in in order to calibrate, so we can stay inside where it's warm.
It was still warm after dinner, so JohnE, Richard, and I walked over to Scott Base. It's a nice 40-minute walk over the hill with some great scenery. We ride over the hill on the bus each day, so it's familiar, but it was nice to slow down and get a good look. I also finally figured out where Pegasus Field, the airport on the permanent ice shelf is. I'd known vaguely, but hadn't taken the time to actually try and see it across the frozen ice.
It doesn't look like Friday will be launch day, but if there's one thing that's constant here it's that you never know.
At 11am, we had our weather briefing and status update from CSBF. At that point, it sounded like there was a good chance that we'd be launching Friday morning, and we made plans to be picked up at the dorm around 2am, with the optimal flight time being about 10am McMurdo time. This lasted about two hours. After lunch, we found out that that time wouldn't be suitable for CSBF to launch us, so we would come in at our regular time on Friday.
In the afternoon, I ran through the pre-flight checklist with Richard. Someone has run through this checklist at least once a day since we declared flight-ready, and it's helped us practice and make sure that we'll be able to do everything we need to get done on launch day. This checkout involves sending commands to the computer over our line-of-sight (LOS) antennas, and looking at the data that gets set down. We verify that we're able to turn on and control the high voltages on the instrument, that LEDs inside each detector flash (and therefore tell us that our photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) are still functioning), and that the computer is able to go back to its previous state in the event of an unexpected reboot.
EBEX outside for testing
It was still warm after dinner, so JohnE, Richard, and I walked over to Scott Base. It's a nice 40-minute walk over the hill with some great scenery. We ride over the hill on the bus each day, so it's familiar, but it was nice to slow down and get a good look. I also finally figured out where Pegasus Field, the airport on the permanent ice shelf is. I'd known vaguely, but hadn't taken the time to actually try and see it across the frozen ice.
It doesn't look like Friday will be launch day, but if there's one thing that's constant here it's that you never know.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Monitoring Training: December 5, 2012
Wednesday morning, Ivan the Terra Bus pulled up at the bus stop in McMurdo right on time. As we were getting on the bus, though, we were informed that we'd be leaving a bit late, in order to let a crew from Fleet Ops (who maintain the roads) check out the conditions and make things safe. Once we finally got the OK and got going, it took us around an hour to get all the way out to LDB, basically twice as long as normal.
This put us in a bit of a time crunch, since we had about five minutes to prepare for a training session that we had been planning for our collaborators back in the US. During flight, Super-TIGER will be monitored by teams around the country around the clock, so it was important that everyone understand how this monitoring and commanding of the instrument will work.
It took Richard a little bit to set up, but eventually, everyone was tied in and able to see what Richard was doing on his computer screen. He then essentially went through the pre-flight checklist, explaining each command as he went and fielding questions from the audience. Eventually, he got through everything and was able to turn the phone over to Kenichi and Makoto for an explanation of the internal monitoring website.
Makoto and Kenichi have developed a system that takes the raw data from the instrument, processes it, and puts it up on a webpage for the monitoring team to see. This includes "housekeeping" data, like what voltages parts of the instrument is reading and what we've set our setting so, and real particle events, which are displayed in a variety of different ways. Talking everyone through the entire website took another hour or so, by which point we were long overdue for lunch.
After lunch, I went along to the CSBF weather briefing, where we got an update on the situation for the next few days. Thursday and maybe part of Friday look like they have the potential for a launch window, but after that it's not looking good for a few days. We'll see how things work out in the next few days, and there will be updates on twitter and Facebook as soon as we get word that there will be a launch attempt.
Wednesday night in McMurdo there wasn't much going on, so I went to check out the Wednesday soccer games they have. We ended up playing 3-on-4 in a small basketball court in the "Big Gym" in town. It was fun, but exhausting. The slippery floors didn't help very much, either.
We'll keep everyone updated if we move towards a launch attempt in the next day or so. Right now, if looks like if there is an attempt on Thursday it won't be until the late afternoon McMurdo time (after 10pm CT Wednesday or so).
This put us in a bit of a time crunch, since we had about five minutes to prepare for a training session that we had been planning for our collaborators back in the US. During flight, Super-TIGER will be monitored by teams around the country around the clock, so it was important that everyone understand how this monitoring and commanding of the instrument will work.
It took Richard a little bit to set up, but eventually, everyone was tied in and able to see what Richard was doing on his computer screen. He then essentially went through the pre-flight checklist, explaining each command as he went and fielding questions from the audience. Eventually, he got through everything and was able to turn the phone over to Kenichi and Makoto for an explanation of the internal monitoring website.
Makoto and Kenichi have developed a system that takes the raw data from the instrument, processes it, and puts it up on a webpage for the monitoring team to see. This includes "housekeeping" data, like what voltages parts of the instrument is reading and what we've set our setting so, and real particle events, which are displayed in a variety of different ways. Talking everyone through the entire website took another hour or so, by which point we were long overdue for lunch.
 |
| The CSBF Weather Briefing |
After lunch, I went along to the CSBF weather briefing, where we got an update on the situation for the next few days. Thursday and maybe part of Friday look like they have the potential for a launch window, but after that it's not looking good for a few days. We'll see how things work out in the next few days, and there will be updates on twitter and Facebook as soon as we get word that there will be a launch attempt.
Wednesday night in McMurdo there wasn't much going on, so I went to check out the Wednesday soccer games they have. We ended up playing 3-on-4 in a small basketball court in the "Big Gym" in town. It was fun, but exhausting. The slippery floors didn't help very much, either.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Flight Readiness Review and Bad Weather: December 3, 2012
As forecasted, Tuesday morning was windy out at the LDB site at Willy Field. We spent the morning doing the same types of things as Monday--updating our internal website with all the relevant reference information, making sure everything was in place, and verifying that everything was ready for lunch. JohnE and Richard ran through the pre-flight checkout checklist again in the early afternoon and made sure that things would work out on launch day.
At 11am, we had our first weather briefing from Ross, the CSBF meteorologist down here. The forecast called for deteriorating conditions Tuesday, with more snow on Wednesday. That would put the earliest possibility of a launch at around Thursday. Of course, that depends on how conditions change between now and then, particularly on how the weak high pressure system that is nearby rolls in. Once we get good enough weather for a launch opportunity, we should hopefully be good to go.
In the afternoon, visibility was greatly reduced when we headed over to the LDB conference room for our Flight Readiness Review. In this meeting, we went through a number of checklists that CSBF and NASA require before launch and reviewed who would be doing what on launch day.
After the review, we had a launch safety training for the entire Super-TIGER ice team. This went over basic safety for launch day--how far we have to stay from the launch vehicle, various danger zones around the launch pad, and what to do in the case of an emergency.
In the middle of this safety training, we found out that, due to the bad weather, Ivan the Terra Bus would come pick us up an hour early. This didn't leave much time (or so we thought) after the safety training, so once that was done, we hurried back and packed everything up. We ended up waiting around in the wind and blowing snow for around 15 minutes before the bus showed up.
When we got back to town, we had dinner with Dan the lineman, who told us he had gotten stuck in the snow on his way out to help set up the power lines at Pegasus, the airfield out on the permanent sea ice beyond LDB. With the Sea Ice Runway we arrived at being abandoned (and probably melting away into the sea at some point soon), Pegasus is now the only airport planes are flying out of near McMurdo.
Not Launch Conditions
In the afternoon, visibility was greatly reduced when we headed over to the LDB conference room for our Flight Readiness Review. In this meeting, we went through a number of checklists that CSBF and NASA require before launch and reviewed who would be doing what on launch day.
After the review, we had a launch safety training for the entire Super-TIGER ice team. This went over basic safety for launch day--how far we have to stay from the launch vehicle, various danger zones around the launch pad, and what to do in the case of an emergency.
In the middle of this safety training, we found out that, due to the bad weather, Ivan the Terra Bus would come pick us up an hour early. This didn't leave much time (or so we thought) after the safety training, so once that was done, we hurried back and packed everything up. We ended up waiting around in the wind and blowing snow for around 15 minutes before the bus showed up.
Antarctica is cold
The Terra Bus Arrives!
Monday, December 3, 2012
Pathfinder Launch and Declaration of "Launch Ready": December 3, 2012
Monday morning, the weather out at the LDB facility on the ice shelf was almost perfect. NASA CSBF (Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility) planned on launching a Pathfinder balloon around 9am to get first-hand data about the vortex over Antarctica. When I went outside to get a look, I could see a smaller "pie ball" balloon up to test the winds a few hundred feet above the ground. Since there was some time left before launch, I went back inside and got to work.
A little before 9am the BLAST crew all came down at the same time to go see the launch, so I grabbed my camera and followed them out. By the time we got outside, though, the pathfinder balloon was off the ground and slowly going up into the sky.
The Pathfinder's flight can be tracked here: http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/pathfinder/p1/dec2012/balloon1.htm
We spent the day finalizing our initial settings for our software during the flight and getting things ready to go for launch. I spent most of the afternoon modifying our quick-look software so it displayed some more information coming down from the payload. Richard ran through a complete pre-flight checkout and will keep doing that every day until launch.
In the afternoon, we officially declared ourselves Launch Ready. Sometime Monday (US time) we're expecting to get the all-clear from NASA to launch, so now it's just a waiting game until the weather is nice enough to launch. Tuesday morning there will be a weather briefing but right now it's looking like Tuesday will be windy and Wednesday will be snowy, so it will be later in the week before we're able to launch.
A "Pie Ball" above the LDB site
A little before 9am the BLAST crew all came down at the same time to go see the launch, so I grabbed my camera and followed them out. By the time we got outside, though, the pathfinder balloon was off the ground and slowly going up into the sky.
The Pathfinder balloon drifts away
The Pathfinder's flight can be tracked here: http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/pathfinder/p1/dec2012/balloon1.htm
We spent the day finalizing our initial settings for our software during the flight and getting things ready to go for launch. I spent most of the afternoon modifying our quick-look software so it displayed some more information coming down from the payload. Richard ran through a complete pre-flight checkout and will keep doing that every day until launch.
In the afternoon, we officially declared ourselves Launch Ready. Sometime Monday (US time) we're expecting to get the all-clear from NASA to launch, so now it's just a waiting game until the weather is nice enough to launch. Tuesday morning there will be a weather briefing but right now it's looking like Tuesday will be windy and Wednesday will be snowy, so it will be later in the week before we're able to launch.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Preparing for Flight, BLAST and EBEX Outside and also Bob's roommate is an astronaut: December 2, 2012
Sunday we continued our preparation for flight, deciding on more initial settings for our flight software. One big focus that JohnE spent a lot of time working on was our high priority threshold, which is a balancing act between getting all the good science we want (so more things being high priority=better science) and the antenna bandwidth we may have in flight (more things being high priority=trying to send more data down than is possible). This is a bigger issue for our slower satellite links, since our High Gain Antenna (HGA) should be able to get almost all of the data down right away. Everything will end up being saved on the instrument hard drives anyway, but we'll be adjusting our calibrations with in-flight data.
BLAST and EBEX both had testing to do outside, so at one point they were both outside at the same time. We joked that we should move Super-TIGER outside as well just so that we could get a group photo, but we kept our instrument inside all day. The weather was too windy for a pathfinder launch, so they'll try again Monday.
Sunday night there was the usual weekly science lecture. This week, it was by Dr. Stan Love, an astronaut who flew to the International Space Station (ISS) on STS-122 and performed two spacewalks. He also is Bob's new roommate, having arrived on Friday. He gave us a very interesting talk about his spaceflight and what they accomplished, and then answered questions from the audience. One theme he kept coming back to was the parallels to Antarctica a century ago and space today. Apparently one of his interests now is finding good analogues to spaceflight on Earth, and Antarctica, with its potentially life-threatening environment and the need to take everything you need with you, is a very good approximation. He also made the argument that the first permanent base on the moon will likely function a lot like McMurdo does today.
BLAST and EBEX both had testing to do outside, so at one point they were both outside at the same time. We joked that we should move Super-TIGER outside as well just so that we could get a group photo, but we kept our instrument inside all day. The weather was too windy for a pathfinder launch, so they'll try again Monday.
BLAST (left) and EBEX (right)
Sunday night there was the usual weekly science lecture. This week, it was by Dr. Stan Love, an astronaut who flew to the International Space Station (ISS) on STS-122 and performed two spacewalks. He also is Bob's new roommate, having arrived on Friday. He gave us a very interesting talk about his spaceflight and what they accomplished, and then answered questions from the audience. One theme he kept coming back to was the parallels to Antarctica a century ago and space today. Apparently one of his interests now is finding good analogues to spaceflight on Earth, and Antarctica, with its potentially life-threatening environment and the need to take everything you need with you, is a very good approximation. He also made the argument that the first permanent base on the moon will likely function a lot like McMurdo does today.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
More Pre-Flight Preparation and Stuff I Forgot From Friday
There were two other things from Friday that I neglected to mention yesterday. First, we got a quick visit from three members of the National Science Board, which is appointed by the President to oversee the National Science Foundation. Bob gave them a quick tour and we all introduced ourselves before they had to hurry out to see the other payloads and catch a flight.
Also on that flight from the ice to Christchurch was Frank, whose time on the ice finished up with the Hang Test. This leaves the Super-TIGER ice team at 7 people. Frank's plane out was also the last of the Air Force C-17s that will come in and out of McMurdo until late January. In the meantime, the station will be serviced by a modified Airbus (run by the Australians, I believe) and military C-130s. This means that less cargo will be getting through to the ice, which means that during the "C-17 Gap" fresh fruits and vegetables become a bit more precious. It also means that the people that leave the ice between now and around January 20th have an extra three hours or so on their flight back to Christchurch, making the trip home that much longer.
Saturday, wind conditions were bad enough that the Pathfinder balloon launch CSBF had planned had to be postponed. This balloon will verify that the vortex has indeed set up around Antarctica, clearing the way for actual payloads (i.e. Super-TIGER) to launch. This vortex essentially allows for a balloon launched from Antarctica to float around the entire continent and come back roughly to the same spot in roughly two weeks. Ideally, Super-TIGER will get two revolutions around, for a total of around 30 days of flight, but that depends on the path the balloon takes as well as the smooth functioning of all the equipment involved.
We also got to work deciding on initial voltages for all the Photomultiplier Tubes (PMTs). We also got initial values for how much output from our detectors causes a coincidence in the software, and started working on how to sort high-priority events from low priority ones.
Also on that flight from the ice to Christchurch was Frank, whose time on the ice finished up with the Hang Test. This leaves the Super-TIGER ice team at 7 people. Frank's plane out was also the last of the Air Force C-17s that will come in and out of McMurdo until late January. In the meantime, the station will be serviced by a modified Airbus (run by the Australians, I believe) and military C-130s. This means that less cargo will be getting through to the ice, which means that during the "C-17 Gap" fresh fruits and vegetables become a bit more precious. It also means that the people that leave the ice between now and around January 20th have an extra three hours or so on their flight back to Christchurch, making the trip home that much longer.
Saturday, wind conditions were bad enough that the Pathfinder balloon launch CSBF had planned had to be postponed. This balloon will verify that the vortex has indeed set up around Antarctica, clearing the way for actual payloads (i.e. Super-TIGER) to launch. This vortex essentially allows for a balloon launched from Antarctica to float around the entire continent and come back roughly to the same spot in roughly two weeks. Ideally, Super-TIGER will get two revolutions around, for a total of around 30 days of flight, but that depends on the path the balloon takes as well as the smooth functioning of all the equipment involved.
We also got to work deciding on initial voltages for all the Photomultiplier Tubes (PMTs). We also got initial values for how much output from our detectors causes a coincidence in the software, and started working on how to sort high-priority events from low priority ones.
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