Catching up on some of the action since my last post. Shinification of the SPIDER sun shields occupied me for a few more days. Once that was finished, we had a little fun with the space ship/party room before standing it upright. We have spend much of the past couple weeks busily testing SPIDER in preparation for eventually flying. Some of this involved attaching calibration devices to test the telescopes/detectors. With space in the highbay, we have also been able to scan the gondola, to test various observing modes.
Ceremonial preparation of shiny sheet
South Pole visitors
We put Roger to work
Cynthia's alien face
Showing off her uncut tape backing
Piloting the shiny "space ship"
Space invader Jon
With ray gun
Low energy heat rays
Sean takes a look
Plus SPIDER in the background
Unsure what to do with his "weapons"
Ivan with reflected Canadian flag
And rice crispy treat
Pre-lifting "dance" party
Cosmic micro-Rave background
And ghost Ziggy
Sasha's beat stick
And menacing crazy eyes
Upright sun shields
With antennas on top
FTS calibration setup
With a clever mount that rotates it around to each telescope
Preparing to scan
It's a bird? It's a plane? It's SPIDER!
Natalie checks the star cameras
Ready to go
Don and Barth supervise, as scanning starts
Pony scan
Real SPIDER attitude data from a scan conducted while I was bored on night shift
Mess of wires
In the main break-out box, which I'd opened up for some repairs
Polarization calibration setup
The Boss hanging out
Break in the clouds
Night shift was overcast for most of my first week
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