<\/a>The highbay, as I find it on arrival <\/div>
Gondola built, and Lloro closed up<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Under the mezzanine <\/div>
Lab space<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>On top of the mezzanine <\/div>
Office space<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Susan insulates Lloro <\/div>
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<\/a>With blue foam and aluminized mylar (incomplete here) <\/div>
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<\/a>Sasha pokes at the motorized valves <\/div>
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<\/a>Steven refelects shinily <\/div>
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<\/a>Joseph perfofrms ACS surgery <\/div>
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<\/a>Riccardo models proper cryo PPE <\/div>
(Personal Protective Equipment). And a Spider hoodie<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Corwin uses the mini mill <\/div>
Recently obtained for<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>View of the highbay again <\/div>
Can you spot the differences?<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Upgrading the drives in our detector readout computers <\/div>
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<\/a>Soldering iron + heat gun <\/div>
= winning<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Connecting the battery power system <\/div>
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<\/a>Johanna puts the baffle rims together <\/div>
Flight campaigns have many opportunities for arts and crafts<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Inside the star camera computer <\/div>
Which I didn't want to open. But I didn't have to want to<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Packing an ECW bag of wine <\/div>
For thanksgiving dinner<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Thanksgiving dinner <\/div>
I'm thankful for all these people (especially LDB chef Dan, at front right)<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Snowy Sunday <\/div>
We're only the second van to brave the roads after some new snow drifts on Sunday<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Jason models a new Spider shirt <\/div>
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<\/a>Installing some final pre-lift Lloro insulation with Susan <\/div>
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<\/a>Simon pulls <\/div>
As we rotate Lloro from vertical to lift position<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Gondola and Lloro <\/div>
Apart for the last time<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Gondola floor <\/div>
With much of the electronics boxes and cables installed<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Sasha and cables <\/div>
She neatened up all of the cables on the inner frame.<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Cryo plumbing <\/div>
In the state during nitrogen fills<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Lloro's other side <\/div>
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<\/a>And the front profile <\/div>
I take a little tour pre-lift<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>The front <\/div>
Covered telescope ports, and cryo electronics<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>End of Lloro tour <\/div>
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<\/a>Rotating the gondola <\/div>
To lift position<\/div><\/div>![Corwin cleans the "hockey sticks" \u2022 <a style="font-size:0.8em;" href="http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/27717602@N03\/52534454194\/" target="_blank">View on Flickr<\/a>](https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/52534454194_02062bc03c_m.jpg "Corwin cleans the \\"hockey sticks\\"")
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<\/a>Corwin cleans the "hockey sticks" <\/div>
These arms are part of the elevation drive system, as well as the elevation locks for launch<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Testing elevatino drives <\/div>
With helpful holders<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Rigging Lloro to lift <\/div>
with the temporary spreader bar<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>![\"Gondola](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52534476984_20cbd447ed_n.jpg\")
During my first week in Antarctica, we completed the final preparations to join the cryostat (aka Llorothaag, or Lloro) to the balloon gondola that will support Lloro during the flight. The two systems were broadly complete already, with Lloro vacuum sealed and pre-cooling full of liquid nitrogen. But there were lots of little things to fix with cables, insulation, and testing. The week culminated in Spider finally coming together as a complete unit. I was able to spend my first full day out at our Long Duration Balloon facility (LDB), which we commute to each day from McMurdo Station. After catching up with everyone, I spent much of the next couple days on mandatory training for new arrivals, before finally being able to get back to work. My arrival made the field team almost complete, just waiting for Bill. The weekend after my arrival was American Thanksgiving, one of the big celebration days in McMurdo, and one of the rare two-day weekends (though, alas, not for me, as I paid the price for arriving so late). We managed to have the whole team together for the celebration meal, with both different shifts together. We were joined by a couple others: a colleague waiting to travel to the South Pole for a related project, as well as our wonderful chef out at LDB. Note also that for this campaign I’ve brought a film camera (Nikon FM) with me. So there will be a bunch of photos, mostly from outside, that I won’t be posting until after I’ve returned home and had the film developed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6618"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6618"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6620,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6618\/revisions\/6620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}