Day 36, 4/30/09 -- I can has EBEX pls?

Now that the entire experiment is together and running off of one flight computer, there's been a bit of pushing and shoving for access to the gondola and flight computer. Some people want to debug code, others want to run detectors, others want to do scan tests, etc, so it's become a bit of a logistical hassle coordinating work. It hasn't been too bad yet, but we'll see how it goes in the future.

Last night, during the scan tests, Will and others added 200 lb of balancing weight to the cryostat to allow the elevation drive to work properly. Of course, this is 200 lb we can't really spare, so I'm trying to come up with a solution that will save us weight but still allow reliable elevation motion.

Other work that went on today: Some work on fixing some little electronics issues, Ilan cycled our fridges so our detectors are now cold, Hannes and François are working on tuning SQUIDs and detectors, Dan and Michele got a lot of work done on setting up the artificial planet, and Shaul and I are having lots of problems with mirror alignment.

CREST might launch tomorrow (sort of marginal conditions), but I'll be here early anyway to do more work on the mirror alignment with Shaul before he heads back to Minnesota.

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico043009#

Day 35, 4/29/09 -- This post intentionally left blank

No 'real' post today. I've hit a wall of tiredness and decided that the time I normally use to sort through pictures and write a blog post would be better spent sleeping.

Nothing interesting happened today anyway.

Day 34, 4/28/09 -- Cryostat meets Doc Ock

Last night, after the installation of the cryostat, the gondola was handed over to Will, Joy, and Daniel for more ACS/scan tests. At some point in the very early morning, it seems that our elevation drive system malfunctioned and overheated. We're still investigating the cause of this, but we have both a spare motor and actuator

After starting the installation of electronics crates yesterday, that work continued today. For a while, everything was on, but Ilan found a short in one of the bolometer power crates so that had to come off for debugging. François basically spent the entire day on the gondola getting detector cables in place and getting our RF shielding 'dryer hose' buttoned up. Now the cryostat looks a little bit like Doc Ock from Spiderman.

After I dealt with a whole bunch of administrative stuff in the morning and then having our weekly telecon, Shaul and I worked on mirror mount alignment. On the first attempt, we were able to get the mount to within 0.050" or so of its nominal position -- not bad for trying to align two things that are roughly 50" apart, but not actually good enough for what we need (less than 0.020". The two mirrors are roughly 90" apart, and need to be aligned to the same tolerance!) . After puzzling over this for a few hours, we couldn't come up with a good reason for why the alignment procedure didn't work, so we're probably just going to try again tomorrow.

The weather here turned windy and rainy so CREST wasn't able to launch today. However, the weather the next couple of days is supposed to be better, so maybe they'll launch Thursday? We were informed that the high-altitude-wind 'turnaround' will reach New Mexico in about 2 weeks, after which there will be a 1-2 week period of relatively low-speed high-altitude winds. This corresponds well with our planned flight readiness date.

Also, now I can officially say I've been here over a month (for any month of the year!). We've made a ton of progress, but there's still a lot left to do and we're going into over-overtime mode to get everything done. As if we weren't getting enough sleep...

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico042809#

Day 33, 4/27/09 -- Cryostat and gondola, together again for the first time.

The big news today is that we got the cryostat installed on the gondola. We had done it before, last year at our pre-flight integration at Columbia's Nevis lab, but now it's for real.

All in all, it was a pretty smooth process. Since we've done it before once, we knew what to expect, and it took only a little bit longer than I predicted (four hours instead of three, start to finish). We then started the process of aligning our mirror mounts, installing detector readout electronics on the gondola, and just general "get it working"-ness.

Also, with the cryostat on the gondola, we were able to clear up a ton of floor space in the high bay, which we'll need when we do full telescope tests with our 'artificial planet'.

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico042709#

Day 32, 4/25 -- The calm before the storm

Since the detectors are still cold, Dan and others spent a lot of today doing calibration tests. I'm happy to report that they were able to get all of the major tests done -- another big milestone, and what will hopefully be a big part of Dan's thesis! Great job, Dan.

I spent most of today thinking about the baffles -- mostly, how are we going to attach all of this crazy crap to the gondola and have it not fall apart. We have a plan, and some of the last bits of material will be ordered shortly.

I also spent some time today playing around with Google Analytics. I had set up an Analytics account for this blog a few days after I started it but then forgot completely until I was reminded by a post over at Uncertain Principles. With it, we found out that Jeff's mom not only checks this blog from work but also from their cabin (hi Jeff's mom!), and someone from Estonia has come (once). Also, apparently some of the CSBF people in Palestine, TX read the blog too. I was, uh, just kidding about having driven the forklift...

No pictures today. But tomorrow, we put the cryostat and gondola together (for the 2nd time), and then things get really fun. Stay tuned...

Day 31, 4/25/09 -- The day after

Last night's test of the gondola/ACS was, by all accounts, a resounding success. The ACS team got the gondola scanning back and forth, with all of the sensors working, downlinking data over the transmitters and commanding through the telemetry system -- the whole works. Really awesome. Great job guys and gals! Also, big props to the NASA crew who stayed all night to support the effort.

Since I left early last night (2AM as opposed to ~9AM for the ACS team), the high bay was relatively deserted. Hannes flew back to Minnesota today for a little break, so François, Ilan, and Dan were the only other people in the high bay all morning besides me and Jeff. Dan continued doing calibration tests, and we had quite a scare when it seemed that some of Dan's data (a few hours worth!) accidentally got deleted from the computer's hard drive! It turns out that, besides there being another copy of the data on another computer (albeit in a less-accessible form), it turns out the data files weren't even deleted in the first place. Whew!

Shaul showed up today as well, and proceeded to get a rundown on the status of all major systems from the relevant parties. Jeff and I spent a fair part of the afternoon painting some of the exposed metal on the gondola. It turns out that, in the near-space environment of a high-altitude balloon, the sun can warm up bare aluminum to hundreds of degrees Celsius! Painting it white not only reduces the amount of sunlight absorbed, but also increases the amount of heat that can be radiated away, keeping the entire thing cool. Pretty neat!

A few pictures today at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico042509#

Day 30, 4/24/09 Part 2 -- Day 30 Strikes Back!

After going home to try and get some rest (and failing miserably, on my part), we went back to the high bay to help the gondola/ACS crew roll the experiment out and have it picked up and deposited away from the building to calibrate sensors and do scan tests.

I should point out that this is HUGE. This is the first time EBEX has ever been outside. It's the first time we have all of the sensors. It's the first time we're talking to EBEX and having it do things over the flight telemetry link.

Jeff and I went back mainly for manpower support. I ended up driving our articulated boom arm to make the crane connections/disconnections because it's way easier to get that thing in place than NASA's bucket lift. And, of course, we took lots of pictures. The new pictures in today's album were taken by me, Britt, Joy, and Jeff.

Check 'em out:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico042409#

Day 30, 4/24/09 -- EBEX in Flight, early edition

Tonight, we're planning on doing a full outdoor test of the gondola's attitude control system, so some of us have come back to try and get a little rest before heading back to the high bay to meet up with the NASA peeps.

Jeff learned how to operate our cherry picker so he could replace some bolts on the triangle support that we installed yesterday. I saw the launch vehicle driving around this morning in preparation for activities tonight.

We (meaning Will and the NASA guys) were able to get our computers talking with the NASA equipment -- a critical interface needed for flight. Not only that, we can now send commands from our computers wirelessly, and receive data from the transmitters as well! Pretty sweet, if I do say so.

Just a few pictures today (so far, I'll probably get a lot more tonight). Bonus video of the launch vehicle driving around!
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico042409#

Day 29, 4/23/09 -- This title intentionally left blank

Today we achieved a pretty big milestone: We installed what we call the "triangle support", some long aluminum bars at funny angles that are intended to hold up parts of gondola when the experiment lands. Jeff and I spent a lot of time on these parts, both in machining as well as in fixing some manufacturing mistakes, so it was very satisfying to see it all come together.

The triangle support is one component that is important for the planned attitude control system test that the gondola team wants to do this weekend, before the cryostat and gondola meet. The gondola team is working hard to make this test happen, and the cryostat team is working hard to make sure we can get all of our receiver tests done. To that end, I cycled our sub-Kelvin refrigeration systems today while Hannes and Dan prepared to do tests.

I took a few minutes out of the day to try and sharpen the crappiest knife edge I've ever seen. I bought the knife from the local supermarket, and straight out of the box it was pretty much useless. So I took it over to the bench grinder in the machine shop and, after a few attempts got what looked like a reasonable edge. Once I got home, I tried it out and, wouldn't you know it, it actually cuts now! Kind of amazing, given that I'd never sharpened a knife before.

Also, we lowered the adjustable hoop outside our high bay door and had some fun pretending to be NBA superstars. Check it out in the pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico042309#

Day 28, 4/22/09 -- Booms, bugs, and bolometers

The weather here in NM is finally becoming what I expected New Mexico weather to be like: hot! Today it got up to nearly 90 degrees, and it was glorious. Of course, with the heat come bugs. We've seen a marked increase in the numbers of flies, moths, and other various kinds of bugs around the high bay. Strangely, all of the bugs here are VERY slow. I was actually able to just step on a fly a couple of days ago.

We got some new additions to the team today, and one subtraction. François drove Kevin to Albuquerque so he could fly back to Montreal, spent the day there, and then drove back with Ilan and Will, who both arrived last night. Once back in the high bay, they jumped right in to work. Will quickly fixed a configuration issue we were having with the serial ports on the flight computer. Dan spent the day taking data with the Ebert-Fastie monochromator he built, getting information on the receiver's spectral response. I spent a good part of the day working on the baffling mechanical design.

The big news here today was the arrival of our rented articulated boom lift. Let me tell you: This thing is FUN. We need it to do some calibration/systematics tests as well as eventually to deal with the gondola once all of its structure is in place. Speaking of structure, Jeff and I have spent a lot of time over the past few days dealing with what I can only assume are manufacturing or design errors in some of the parts for the gondola structure. Making what should be a simple task (bolting a couple of things together) difficult by having to fix others' mistakes is a great way to make a good day turn into an annoying and frustrating one.

Last, Dan had Ilan pick up a new rim for the sad basketball hoop just outside our high bay door. The new one is straight and round and actually has a net! We played a good amount of basketball today, and Britt even got in on the action for a little 3-on-3. Now we have two hoops to choose from. Maybe eventually we'll wheel our hoop over to where the new hoop is and set up a full court!

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico042209#