Day 44, 7/10/2012 -- Groovin'

It's amazing how much data one can take when things actually work and you can get in the groove. We did more scans of another wafer today, and when one gets massive signals it's easy (and quick) to take data. We did 4 or 5 separate scans today, both with and without the half-wave plate rotating. During the scans, Kyle worked more on his analysis code (after he arrived at the high bay in the afternoon), I helped Kevin fix some DfMUX boards and helped Shaul analyze some data taken back in MN, and Kate and Kyle continued working on understanding our bolometers.

On the gondola side, Britt and Michele started setting up hardware in the Bemco for a test of the new power system's electronics and batteries. In addition, they are going to test the inner frame lock pin and the spare elevation actuator, and BLAST is testing a shutter for their cryostat (apparently there are times during their flight where they expect to be pointed toward the sun...and the sun focused through a 1.8-meter mirror generates a pretty high power density which would easily melt the window of their cryostat). On the late shift, Chappy and Joy will be working on testing scan modes while Kyle babysits the fridge cycle to ensure we have working cold detectors for tomorrow's tests.

Last, I took a peek around the last experiment that will be flying from Antarctica this year, SuperTIGER. If you're too lazy to click on the link, it's a heavy-ion cosmic ray detector with an aim to help constrain the possible sources of high energy cosmic rays by measuring the ratios of the various elements that make up cosmic rays. I took some pictures, and like the BLAST album, it will be updated as necessary but probably won't be mentioned on this blog much: https://picasaweb.google.com/104253244018605213307/SuperTIGER2012.

Pictures:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104253244018605213307/EBEXInPalestine20120710