(Backlog from November 7-8) With all the telescope inserts installed, the bottom of Theo (our vacuum vessel/cryostat) is ready to close. On the top side, the half-wave plates need to be installed in their rotation mechanisms above the inserts. Then closing proceeds there as well. To keep Theo cold, progressively colder nested layers of vapour-cooled shield are used. These get cooled by the vapour from boiling liquid helium (the vapour is still very cold), and are separated by vacuum and shiny multi-layer insulation. Installing the shield close-outs and insulation takes a lot of long and somewhat tedious labour. Plus lots of tape. The job was finished by a small team on the following day, while the rest of us took a Sunday off. […]
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(Backlog from 5-6 November) With the detector focal planes completed, the telescope inserts are ready to be reassembled. This happens in parallel on all six, with the lenses being reinstalled, some cables reconnected, the whole thing wrapped and sealed. The following morning, they are ready for insertion. We discovered a failure on another type of insert: an aluminum piece glued inside the gondola’s carbon fibre tubes. One was discovered partially pulled out. We pulled it the rest of the way out, and started scrambling to make a replacement. […]
Backlog from November 3-4. With our cargo finally unpacked, and a large team all in place, we’re ready to work. We break up into several teams and work our asses off. (Continued ass-off working is my excuse for slowness in posting.) Several teams operate in parallel: preparing the vacuum vessel/cryostat (aka Theo), preparing SPIDER’s six telescope inserts, and building the gondola frame. […]
After waiting most of a week, we finally started getting our cargo on the first and second of November. We unpacked and started getting ready for the upcoming onslaught of work. (This onslaught is my excuse for slowness in posting.) With a big eager team and help from the strong CSBF riggers, this went quite quickly. […]
On the final afternoon before our cargo finally showed up, Anne, Bill, Lorenzo, Nat, and I climbed Observation Hill. Located just outside McMurdo, Ob Hill provides a great view of the surrounding area (thus the name). […]
With the cryostat (aka Theo) delivered, Team Princeton was eager to head out to the Long Duration Balloon facility (LDB) to take a look. But since we still didn’t have the rest of our cargo, there wasn’t a lot else to do. Lorenzo, Jamil, Johanna, and I took the opportunity to hike the Castle Rock loop, which is a long recreational hike out of McMurdo (It’s about 16 kilometres long and took us a little over 4 hours to complete.) This was a new experience for me, having previously only hiked Castle Rock late in the season, once we’re waiting to fly. […]
While half of the Spider team is now in Antarctica, almost none of our cargo is. This means we can’t do much useful work, and to pass the time we’ve been exploring. Out first trip was to Hut Point, named after the Discovery Hut constructed by Robert Falcon Scott in the early 20th century. (Somehow, I didn’t take a photograph of the hut itself.) The views were great, but the wind caused us to return to town without undertaking further exploration. […]
BIG NEWS: we finally landed in Antarctica! We were in Christchurch so long that the next wave of SPIDERers showed up. We had one day of overlap in New Zealand, then Ed, Anne, and I caught a C-17 flight the next morning. As soon as the plane dropped us off, it went back for the others (and some precious cargo). They arrived this morning. […]
Yesterday we learned not to trust weather forecasts that say conditions are nice in McMurdo. Because they aren’t. By which I mean our flight was delayed again. Ed and I spent the day starting on Ed’s dream of learning to kite surf. We took the bus out to New Brighton and visited a kite sports and appliance store (the appliances are the money maker). For our introductory lesson (on land) we mostly learned to control the kite. We also spent a little time with a board, not entirely unlike a skateboard. We achieved small spurts of wind-powered motion! […]
Due to terrible weather in McMurdo, our flight was delayed 24 hours. To pass the time, we took the bus towards Lyttleton, and walked over the Bridle Path. This is where early settlers crossed from the port towards Christchurch. […]