Yesterday the cryostat was closed, with some modifications to help reduce microphonics. Preliminary signs (which are hard to determine while warm) are that things remain imperfect, but are quite possibly good enough. […]
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The biggest event yesterday was the second opening of the cryostat. This was to take a more careful look at the source of microphonic noise. Like last time, this involved poking things and rapping on the outside. Unlike last time, it was stripped down a lot further: to the JFET cavity, where detector signals are buffered on their way out of the cryostat. […] Yesterday I was in code mode, so didn’t look much beyond my monitor, or take many pictures. But I did capture everyone’s favourite activity: morning teleconferences. And some other things. […] To start yesterday I caught some debugging of a different kind of noise: in the star camera video downlink. Otherwise we started to warm the cryostat, and some more work happened with the solar panels and mounts. […] Yesterday fire alarms started going off in the highbay, so we spent some time outside. Later that evening, it rained a lot so we spent some time inside. In between we attached the sun shields to the gondola as a fit test. […] Yesterday was a bit too exciting. To get things started Enzo had made delicious fresh bread. Then comes the part that’s "too" exciting: we continue the tradition of catastrophic power system failures in Texas by destroying our solar charge controller. Finally, we utilize some free space in the highbay by installing a "Team Building Information Facilitator" (aka foosball table). […] Because she will be leaving us soon, Sue was convinced to prepare authentic Minnesota hotdish for us. I also have some pictures from wandering outside and, upon request, some more details of the new solar panel holders. […] Yesterday we filled with liquid helium, so should have a functioning instrument again on the weekend. In other news: Barth (who has yet to appear in a photograph) and Joseph sorted out some data downlink errors, Tyr was finishing the solar panel holders, Natalie and Brad debugged a misbehaving star camera, Greg was polishing his window shutter control, Tristan and Enzo invented a new method for dealing with data issues from the last flight, Elio babysat the cooling cryostat, Mark installed linux on his computer before he left Palestine, and Laura and I continued to upgrade the code—plus we made delicious vegan chili and cornbread, and probably people did a lot of things I’m not aware of, or can’t express in a single (though shockingly run-on) sentence. […] Much of the activity yesterday was related to sun shields, antennas, and solar panel frames. CSBF finished cabling their antennas on top of hte sun shields, Joseph brought over the high-gain TDRSS antenna, and Tyr worked on the new solar array holders with the help of Brad. […] Yesterday was a quiet day, and people were mostly busy on their computers (ie. not doing anything photo worthy). Continuing the record-speed cryostat turnaround, it was filled with liquid nitrogen. A few tour groups visited. […] |
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