I’ve taken a little while off posting because I was travelling home, and then catching up on much missed sleep. But I have a few last photos to sign off with: some innards of the magnetometer and sun sensors, plus a couple more from the enigmatic "building" 16. And while I’m done posting for this campaign, there may be some posts coming up from the brave team that stayed behind. […]
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Yesterday we put the cold cryostat and everything back on the gondola, in an attempt to have a fully complete instrument for Friday. Because I’m leaving soon, I also decided to do some exploring. […] Yesterday BLAST went outside to test things that don’t work inside: sun sensors, GPS, and telemetry. Notably, this required Tiny Tim—everybody’s favourite behemoth of a launch vehicle. […] Yesterday we were doing lots of the little things we need to do before taking the gondola outside. Since the "we" doing lots of stuff occasionally includes "me", I can’t always be taking photographs of everything. So, most of what I have is from the first of the (third round of) liquid helium fills in the morning. […] Yesterday Elio, Barth, and I did some arts and crafts, preparing the solar panel mounts for use. In the evening we had a big barbecue with the EBEX folks, but I was too busy grilling to take photos. You can find one picture on twitter @BLASTPol […] Because Enzo was leaving yesterday (or, rather, early today), we all went to the pub. During the day CSBF test fit their solar panels, which mainly involved loudly squealing with a hand drill while the mounts were modified. And Kyle test fit the new pinhole sun sensor mounts. Finally, like on all clear nights, Natalie and Laura were pointing the telescope and testing the star cameras. […] I didn’t take many pictures yesterday, but I have saved a few non-cryogenic pictures from the cryostat-opening day earlier in the week. They’re mostly of Barth fixing biphase transmitter bugs, and of Enzo teaching Tristan the recipe he’s been using to make bread in the mornings. […] 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. […] 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. […] |
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