Two days ago we took BLAST outside to the pad! (After the previous night’s late team fixed the terrible DAS-doesn’t-work-anymore bug we’d created. This is the primary reason I didn’t sleep in, and I’m glad I didn’t—otherwise I would have missed a bunch of important pictures.) Seeing BLAST outside, and The Boss in action are very worthwhile reasons to be present.<\/p>\n
The day went surprisingly well: sensors worked, we managed to point the star cameras at a star (no mean feat with only manual control and Antarctic daylight in your way), and the weather stayed clear and calm.<\/p>\n
Calm, that is, until the wind decided to pick up just before we came inside. In the wind, BLAST’s shiny sun shields work as a pretty good sail. A sail that really wants to tip over. Fortunately, the CSBF crew was around to help save us from some pretty serious damage. At Willy Field, less than 1km away across our featureless plain, the winds never got nearly as high.<\/p>\n\n\t\t