At 9:31 local time (NZDT) BLAST-Pol terminated. It now rests about 630km away, roughly along the South Pole Traverse.
The gondola is at rest, we think it might be upright-ish, and systems still work good enough for us to guess that it might be upright-ish. So, at least for now, things are in good shape.
Update: I added some more pictures. Also 630km, not 630m.
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- Barth reads out commands from our power-down checklist
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- Matt and Elio send the commands
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- Waiting, in the dark, for BLAST to fall
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- Laura does the same on the other side of the room
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- Final revision of our highly scientific and accurate map
Whahoo and Three cheers! Steve, Thank you so much for your great communications. We have thoroughly enjoyed both your pictures and comments. (have sent your site to dozens of friends and family who have followed your journey as well) You obviously have more than one area of giftedness. Thanks for allowing us to have sense of participation from the sidelines. You’re our hero!
Congrats to the team!
Ha, I took me about a day to realize that 630m made no sense. Congrats.