First pair of antennas down the 40m hole

Today we were able to lower down the first pair of antennas down a 40 meter hole. The drill crew uses a hot water drill to melt through the firn or packed snow. At about 40 meters the firn makes a sharp transition to ice and water starts pooling. They can do the first 35 meters or so in a couple minutes, but the last five meters take half an hour or so. Some of the water in the hole permeates the ice overnight. We were expecting the water in the bottom of the hole to freeze overnight, but to our surprise it was still liquid. It means we have to be extra careful not to lower our antennas too deep as they can't get wet.

Here you can see the drill train in the test bed. Basically they fill up the tank on the left with water and it gets heated. They then scoop in snow in the melter in the middle to make up for the water lost in the firn. The middle rig also contains the boilers and the winch for lowering down the drill. The trailer on the end houses the generator, fuel, and supplies.















The next two photos are of the drill rig in camp while they were getting it ready to take out to the drill site.















There's some driller humor in the photo if you look for it.
















This is a photo of the reamer coming out of a hole. The drillers run a drill down first and then pull it out after it has reached the desired depth. Then they run this reamer down to make sure we have a six inch diameter hole the whole way down.















This is what a hole in the ice looks like.















Here you can see the pair of antennas that will be going down the first hole. The far antenna will be at the bottom and the near antennas is 5 meters above it. The water pooled at 36 meters in this hole so we lowered the bottom antenna until it was 2 meters above the water level.



















Here you can see the hole and the trench going back to the middle of our array.

12-28

Today we did some more testing of various components and the drillers were able to drill 2 holes for us. They hope to get the rest finished tomorrow so we can start deploying our antennas.

My coworker who boomeranged out of Christchurch when he was 10 minutes out of McMurdo arrived today. He also got to experience some of the recent earthquakes Christchurch has been having in addition to spending Christmas there.

LDB had another major setback recently when the CREAM payload self-terminated. This is a major malfunction as no command was sent to end the flight, the payload was just cut away from the balloon halfway into their first revolution around the continent. It is unlikely they will be launching any of the other payloads this year in Antarctica and it could really hurt the program after the whole Australian incident.

Also if any of you are interested in getting a free trip to Antarctica, you may want to consider losing your reelection bid as a congressmen. Alan Grayson from Florida made a brief (2 hour) stop here today to take in the sites. We weren't able to take the Pisten Bully out because he got to take it for a spin.

I'll post some photos I didn't take.

This is a photo of the traverse team digging out from the storm they were in.

























Here are some photos of the result of the C-17 air drop. They had some issues with parachutes not opening or fully deploying.


































Lastly a photo my coworker took. I'm on the right writing down the results of the cable tests the other two coworkers are doing. We have to wear the helmet in the drill camp and when riding on the ski-doos, which is a bit of a drag because it's bulky and one more thing to take off and put on all the time.

Work photos and the German film crew

The 277 auguring out our 2 foot diameter 6 foot deep holes. The same machine did the 1.8km of trenching for our cable. The snow was like sugar and kept falling back into the hole so we had do some by hand. It also got stuck on the way out so we had to pull it out with a Pisten Bully.














My coworker lowering an antenna pair into the augured hole.



















Part of the testbed site. We are putting covers over some of the filled 2 foot diameter holes.














One type of antenna, bowtie slotted cylander going down our boreholes. This photo is from the inside of the purple palace.














A different type of antenna going down our 40 meter holes.
















A German film crew showed up at the South Pole late last night. They are getting set up to film the final leg of a race to the South Pole some German television station is doing. We got a long email about how we aren't to let them into the station, to film the station, to give them gifts from the station, to talk to them about the station... Apparently the US Antarctic Program has a pretty clear policy regarding commercial ventures using the resources of our program. It seems harsh, but I've heard of past groups taking advantage of our hospitality and now it's very easy for anyone with $30k to come to station and they all would be quite happy to say they took a shower here or ate at the galley. They are set up in the NGO (non-governmental organization) area which is grid north of the station.

ICL, drill camp, MAPO, and AST/RO

This is looking back towards the station from the road back from the IceCube Lab (ICL). You can see how the snow drifts up in front of the station.















The ICL. The two towers on either side contain the cables coming back from the IceCube array. They left a tens of meters of extra cable to allow the array to be used for a long time as the snow drifts around and up the building. In a couple decades or so the first floor may be partially covered by the drifting snow and eventually the second floor will be the main entrance.















Static electricity is a major problem at the South Pole. Sensitive electronics have been destroyed by someone taking off their big red 5 feet from the components. The relative humidity in a lot of the buildings is in the single digits, but interestingly enough the relative humidity outside is around 80%. However, because the air is so cold, you heat up the pocket of air around your skin and the relative humidity drops. The high relative humidity outside governs and is a result of the rate of sublimation of the ice. I don't quite know how to get a photo of it, but when I move my hand across the comforter when getting into bed at night, you can see dozens of blue flashes. The ICL takes static discharges pretty seriously, and you can tell by the copper grounding strips found throughout the building. It seems to me that it's a little overboard.




















This shot is looking back towards the station from the roof of the ICL.
















A view of the drill camp from the roof of the ICL. You may notice the chariot and the purple palace which is where I do some other work.
















A view of the drill camp with the purple palace in the middle of the shot.






























Here you can see the South Pole Telescope and MAPO from the drill camp.















The van is parked in front of the MAPO building. The Spirex telescope is attached to it on the right. In the background you can see the South Pole Telescope. IceCube, MAPO, and the South Pole Telescope make up the major experiments in the Dark Sector.














Here's a photo of MAPO from the roof of the ICL. On the left is Viper and on the right is Spirex.















During my quest for screws, I thought this building was MAPO, but it turns out it was AST/RO which has been buried to the point that the second floor is now the first floor. They were in the process of demolishing the inside which was my first clue that it was not what I was looking for.















This is looking back towards the IceCube area from the MAPO building that had some screws that we needed.















The work I do day-to-day is variable, but on Friday I spent a good portion of the day under the ICL connecting and disconnecting different components so we could calibrate our instrument. The challenge of the day was keeping the noise source warm while it was directly hooked up to the cold instrument we were calibrating. Apparently we weren't too successful, so we will try again today or tomorrow. In this photo you can see where I spent my afternoon. The board was there to try to keep the components in the shade to keep them cold.

Mele Kalikimaka

Merry Christmas from the South Pole. I have the day off so I should be able to get some posts up with pictures. Last night there was a caroling contest over the radio between the different bases in Antarctica which was broadcast over the PA system in the station. So far today we've had the Race Around the World and we'll be having our very nice dinner later.


The station Christmas tree next to the geographical south pole.



















The vehicldes lined up at the finish of the 2.1 mile course. The fastest male and females runners won a free trip to McMurdo to compete in the marathon there. The vehicles and runners are on two separate paths because of some collisions in previous years






























In the distance you can see a hill that the runners had to climb. I thought the hill was being made for some downhill skiing, but it may also get used for that.















The slowest vehicle in the race, it was hardly faster than the walkers.














I got to ride in the chariot for the event. The chariot is made from re-purposed spools from the IceCube experiment. The drillers who made this float also have a fire-breathing dragon that they did not bring out this year.















There were quite a few couches on the road.































This photo doesn't really capture it, but this is of the cargo area for the station. There are at least a few years worth of food out there as well as a lot of spare parts and a lot of old parts. I was reminded of the scene from the Raiders of the Lost Ark.















I think it's safe to say that there's nothing important in this area of the cargo section.















On the other side of the runners you can see some of the traverse vehicles. Ten people drive from McMurdo station to the South Pole which is about 800 miles as the bird flies. They have been doing it for the last few years to bring in fuel as it is more cost effective to drive stuff here than to fly it in. As luck would turn out, one of the people from Siple Dome who came out on recovery with us for ANITA was driving the traverse this year. Apparently it took them 38 days, but on the record it counts as 33 because they had to turn around two days out due to a malfunction in a new sled design. He said that when they got up onto the Plateau they were snowed in for a few days; it got so bad they couldn't see the vehicles 15 feet away. At the end of storm they spent a few days digging out because some of the vehicles were buried up to near the roof of the cabs. They were possibly going to head out today, but I doubt they will. They are supposed to continue on to pull out the last of the gear from another field camp before turning around and heading back to McMurdo. I figured they'd being staying in the station, but it turns out they get to stay out in there mobile home while they are here.














Here you can see the fuel bladders they haul. They sit on big plastic sheets like a toboggan.

Station Maps

It took me some time, but I found some decent maps of the station to help you get some perspective. The maps come from the website www.southpolestation.com which probably has some other good resources.

I can't seem to get the images to display at a reasonable size in my blog page, so I'll include links to the maps I'm talking about.

The first map shows Antarctica oriented to what is known as grid north. Because any direction from the South Pole is north, the powers that be decided to take the map of Antarctica and orient the continent so the prime meridian is considered grid north.

The second map is a little bit more zoomed in and you can see the different sectors. Because the wind direction is fairly constant, they established the Clean Air Sector upwind to do some environmental monitoring. The Quiet Sector contains sensitive seismic and radio instruments and the Dark Sector contains light and radio sensitive instruments. All the different sectors have appropriate restrictions to limit the interference with the instruments there.

The third map zooms in a bit more and you can see the hexagonal cluster of holes that make up the IceCube experiment. It is that experiment that we are piggybacking on at the moment. IceCube is a major ($270 million) experiment whereas ours at the moment is about $100k. If all goes as we want, we would get additional funding to expand our experiment to be many times the physical size of IceCube but at a fraction of the cost. The testbed site is about 2 kilometers from the western edge of the IceCube array.

The fourth map gives the layout of the station itself. The map is a bit dated though. For example the actual South Pole is now more in line with the middle of the elevated station and the dome has been dismantled. I work in the Ice Cube Laboratory, at our testbed site (not shown on the map), and at the drillers camp inside the IceCube array (not shown). The IceCube array is now complete and I was there last Saturday as they were lowering down the last string.

Update 12-24

I've been busy with work the last couple of days and during that time one of the transmitters on a satellite that the South Pole uses for communications has started acting up and so the the internet is excruciatingly slow during that pass.  It seems that the internet has slowed down during other passes now too, which may be a result of people shifting their internet usage.  I haven't been able to upload photos this morning, but may try again later.  Unfortunately that may not be until tomorrow because the satellite passes happen during my work day.

The South Pole Telescope. It's a radio telescope and although it looks like it's looking at a pile of snow it's actually looking at the sun.














If you look carefully you can see an 8 year old boy whose parents have too much money. Apparently he's the youngest person to go to both poles. We are now getting some tourist flights coming in. From my understanding the trip to the South Pole costs about $30,000 and includes about 2 hours at the pole. I believe the tourists are not allowed inside the station. Some other groups are getting dropped of at 89 degrees south and skiing the rest of the way to the pole.















A twin otter taking off. We were quite busy yesterday with about 5 flights. My boss came in on one of them, so now we'll actually have to start working.














Some sun dogs with the 22 degree arc. I guess it can be formed by specifically shaped ice crystals at high altitudes or low altitudes and to be honest I'm not sure which it was in this photo, but there was some blowing snow. I'll have to use the wide angle to try to get the whole thing.

12-21-10

Every summer the crew here spends a considerable amount of time removing snow that has drifted around the station. They load the snow onto this trailer and drive it out towards the leeward edge of the station and dump it there.















A Pisten Bully. I got certified to drive one yesterday and they are pretty easy to drive, starting them can be a bit complicated though. It's an example of German engineering. Apparently pisten means "packed snow" in German. The ride in the back is pretty bumpy, but up front it's a lot smoother.




















The trencher at the vehicle maintenance facility which was at one point at ground level.















The spool of cable at one end of the trench. We used a snowmobile to pull the cable out, and when the belt on the snowmobile started smoking we switched over to the caterpiller ditch digger.















A box of the ferrites. We put on about 500 of them. The cable carries the power to our instruments as well as the data coming from the instrument. The ferrite is there to suppress any high frequency noise. My boss would have liked to have ferrited the entire 1800 meters (a little over a mile) of cable, but I'm glad we didn't. We only ferrited about 500 feet.















It took the two of us four hours or so and was not much fun towards the end. The plastic cases started breaking in half on a few of them so we had to tape them on the cable. We had cold tested a couple in Hawaii and didn't have that issue and the freezer was colder than it was here.














The cable inside the trench. In the background, if you follow the trench, you can see the station. It's probably about 2 miles away.