Well, I think this is going to be the last installment of this edition of EBEX In Flight. I'm told the gondola has returned to Fort Sumner, and the remaining crew are working hard to disassemble it and pack the pieces up for shipment back to Minnesota and Columbia.
I'd like to thank you, dear reader, for following along. Google Analytics tells me that the blog had 892 unique visitors over the course of the past ~3 months, with a peak of 171 visits on launch day and 175 the day after. We have plenty of work to do in analyzing the data for this flight and getting ready for the next one -- a 2-week flight from Antarctica -- and you can be sure that I'll be blogging that one too.
Until next time...
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Day 83, 6/15/09 -- Farewell, Fort Sumner.
Today, Milligan, Jeff, and I left Fort Sumner. We flew Frontier Airlines, on a jet with a rabbit mascot named Stu. Get it? Rabbit Stu. Yeah.
There's a skeleton crew left behind to meet the gondola when it arrives, disassemble, and pack. The CSBF recovery crew got the gondola on the truck and it is scheduled to arrive back in Fort Sumner tomorrow afternoon/evening.
I'm...going to get some gyros. And falafel.
There's a skeleton crew left behind to meet the gondola when it arrives, disassemble, and pack. The CSBF recovery crew got the gondola on the truck and it is scheduled to arrive back in Fort Sumner tomorrow afternoon/evening.
I'm...going to get some gyros. And falafel.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Day 82, 6/14/09 -- Last day in Fort Sumner
Today was pretty relaxing for me. After the recovery adventure the past few days, I decided that other people could deal with packing up the stuff in the high bay. The gondola is still sitting out in the desert in AZ; they won't be able to get any equipment in until tomorrow, so it probably won't be back in Fort Sumner until Wednesday.
Ilan, Dan, Kyle, and Kate are sticking around to help pack up the cryostat once the gondola gets back. Jeff, Milligan, and I are flying back to Minnesota on Monday.
Nothing really worth taking pictures of today.
Ilan, Dan, Kyle, and Kate are sticking around to help pack up the cryostat once the gondola gets back. Jeff, Milligan, and I are flying back to Minnesota on Monday.
Nothing really worth taking pictures of today.
Day 81, 6/12/09 -- Recovery tales
First, what everyone is dying to know: No, we don't have the payload back yet. The soil near where EBEX landed is very loose and sandy, and the recovery truck actually got stuck, digging its rear tire into a nice hole about half the diameter of the tire and they had to call a tow truck to help pull it out. Recovery of the gondola is waiting on getting some heavy equipment (something with tracks, like a bulldozer or the like) to drag the recovery truck in so they can put the gondola on the trailer.
A more thorough recap of yesterday:
We left Winslow, AZ at about 3:30AM and started driving west on I-40. By about 8AM, we had made it to the turnoff for Lake Havasu City and we stopped for gas and to await further instruction on the payload location. The NASA pilot and some other crew had flown to Lake Havasu and then flew from there to search for the payload.
From the air, they were able to direct us to the gondola. When we got there, we saw that it was on its back, and short distance from the road. It landed in the middle of an empty parcel in the Stagecoach Trails "development" (if you can call it that) near Yucca, AZ. We spent a long time trying to figure out who owned the land, dealing with crappy cell phone reception, a wild goose chase, bla bla bla. Long story short, we were saved by a couple we ran into on the road, Cecil and Deanna Powell, who became interested in our predicament and actually went back to their house, got on the Internet, and looked up the owners while we were out driving around trying to get information. Cecil and Deanna -- thank you so much!
Jeff and I started by walking the ~1000 feet out to the gondola. The first indications were that it was in one piece and the important bits undamaged. We spent a long time looking around and inspecting things before starting any disassembly. Britt joined us a little later and then process went pretty smoothly for us. We started by removing important items like the disks, star camera, and other various pieces of electronics, which took the better part of the afternoon. I checked the cryogen tanks to make sure they were free of ice plugs. Because of the aforementioned truck troubles, we had to carry out all the pieces to the road to load them in the truck and car.
Once it got dark, we headed back to Lake Havasu City and got some sleep -- 7 hours, which was more sleep than I had gotten in the past two days combined.
In the morning today, we talked with the CSBF crew about what we thought needed to be done in order to secure the payload on the truck once they got it there. We split up, and we headed back out to the payload to do some last checks. When we arrived at the payload, we found that one of the neighbors had come out to the payload and put a sticker on our experiment! This amused us greatly. On the way back out, we ran into Cecil and Deanna again, and they gave us the name of a guy with heavy equipment who worked on the weekend and might be able to help CSBF get the payload out. We relayed the info to CSBF and then started the drive back to Fort Sumner.
First, we stopped by the place of the neighbor with the sticker, and we chatted for about a half hour about the project -- he said he had seen the balloon the night while it was at float -- and it ended up landing about 300 feet north of his property. On the way to Fort Sumner, we stopped at the In-N-Out Burger in Kingman, AZ. Then we basically drove the rest of the way non-stop and arrived in Fort Sumner at about midnight.
No pictures from recovery yet, but launch pictures are up at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXLaunch#
A more thorough recap of yesterday:
We left Winslow, AZ at about 3:30AM and started driving west on I-40. By about 8AM, we had made it to the turnoff for Lake Havasu City and we stopped for gas and to await further instruction on the payload location. The NASA pilot and some other crew had flown to Lake Havasu and then flew from there to search for the payload.
From the air, they were able to direct us to the gondola. When we got there, we saw that it was on its back, and short distance from the road. It landed in the middle of an empty parcel in the Stagecoach Trails "development" (if you can call it that) near Yucca, AZ. We spent a long time trying to figure out who owned the land, dealing with crappy cell phone reception, a wild goose chase, bla bla bla. Long story short, we were saved by a couple we ran into on the road, Cecil and Deanna Powell, who became interested in our predicament and actually went back to their house, got on the Internet, and looked up the owners while we were out driving around trying to get information. Cecil and Deanna -- thank you so much!
Jeff and I started by walking the ~1000 feet out to the gondola. The first indications were that it was in one piece and the important bits undamaged. We spent a long time looking around and inspecting things before starting any disassembly. Britt joined us a little later and then process went pretty smoothly for us. We started by removing important items like the disks, star camera, and other various pieces of electronics, which took the better part of the afternoon. I checked the cryogen tanks to make sure they were free of ice plugs. Because of the aforementioned truck troubles, we had to carry out all the pieces to the road to load them in the truck and car.Once it got dark, we headed back to Lake Havasu City and got some sleep -- 7 hours, which was more sleep than I had gotten in the past two days combined.
In the morning today, we talked with the CSBF crew about what we thought needed to be done in order to secure the payload on the truck once they got it there. We split up, and we headed back out to the payload to do some last checks. When we arrived at the payload, we found that one of the neighbors had come out to the payload and put a sticker on our experiment! This amused us greatly. On the way back out, we ran into Cecil and Deanna again, and they gave us the name of a guy with heavy equipment who worked on the weekend and might be able to help CSBF get the payload out. We relayed the info to CSBF and then started the drive back to Fort Sumner.
First, we stopped by the place of the neighbor with the sticker, and we chatted for about a half hour about the project -- he said he had seen the balloon the night while it was at float -- and it ended up landing about 300 feet north of his property. On the way to Fort Sumner, we stopped at the In-N-Out Burger in Kingman, AZ. Then we basically drove the rest of the way non-stop and arrived in Fort Sumner at about midnight.
No pictures from recovery yet, but launch pictures are up at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXLaunch#
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Day 80, 6/12/09 -- The road to recovery
Short post today, because I'm beat: We got to the payload, most everything we expected to survive termination/impact survived, CSBF can't get their trucks near it because the ground is too loose, we removed a lot of our electronics, need sleep, pictures later, goodnight!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Day 79, 6/11/09 -- Launch day!
Well, we launched! The launch looked picture-perfect, but something traumatic happened and something in our elevation actuator broke and the elevation was stuck at about 15 degrees. Not only that, we haven't been able to solve with the star camera all day. It's possible that, due to the low elevation, there's enough atmosphere in the way that the sky is too bright to see stars, which is a major bummer.
On the plus side, a lot of the ACS sensors and control systems are working great. The detectors, after a few hiccups, seem to be running smoothly. The half-wave-plate system has been purring like a kitten. And the baffles survived launch and seem to still be intact because we can't see any sun-synchronous signal.
The float winds were predicted to be high, and indeed have been in the high-40-knot range all day, meaning that the payload just zoomed off to the west after reaching float altitude. Thus, shortly after the launch (at about 11AM), Britt and I left, following Randall, Dorothy, and Bo from CSBF in the recovery trucks. We caravaned across New Mexico, ending up in Winslow, AZ to meet up with the downrange team.
As of 9:40PM New Mexico time, the EBEX flight has been terminated. It is predicted to land slightly east of Lake Havasu, AZ. Britt, myself, and possibly Jeff will meet up with the CSBF recovery team at 3AM to begin the drive out to the western edge of AZ, where we will have to try and figure out how to extricate EBEX from the mountains it looks likely to land in.
Launch video:
Launch pictures will be up later, probably after recovery and I've had some time to sleep.
EDIT: Launch pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXLaunch#
On the plus side, a lot of the ACS sensors and control systems are working great. The detectors, after a few hiccups, seem to be running smoothly. The half-wave-plate system has been purring like a kitten. And the baffles survived launch and seem to still be intact because we can't see any sun-synchronous signal.
The float winds were predicted to be high, and indeed have been in the high-40-knot range all day, meaning that the payload just zoomed off to the west after reaching float altitude. Thus, shortly after the launch (at about 11AM), Britt and I left, following Randall, Dorothy, and Bo from CSBF in the recovery trucks. We caravaned across New Mexico, ending up in Winslow, AZ to meet up with the downrange team.
As of 9:40PM New Mexico time, the EBEX flight has been terminated. It is predicted to land slightly east of Lake Havasu, AZ. Britt, myself, and possibly Jeff will meet up with the CSBF recovery team at 3AM to begin the drive out to the western edge of AZ, where we will have to try and figure out how to extricate EBEX from the mountains it looks likely to land in.
Launch video:
Launch pictures will be up later, probably after recovery and I've had some time to sleep.
EDIT: Launch pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXLaunch#
June 11 launch attempt -- now, go cat go!
We had three to get ready...
0215h local:
Arrived at high bay. Moved gondola toward door and rotated around. Jeff has started closing up the cryostat access panel. Amber showed up 5 minutes prior after a heroic day of traveling, culminating in a 5 hour drive from El Paso. Milligan's dad showed up again too!
0230h local:
Pre-flight checkouts in progress. Should be picked up and out the door soon.
0340h local:
Gondola is out the door, baffles are open, flight train is attached, mirror is cleaned. Now lifting to remove the casters and put on the crush pads.
0413h local:
CSBF is figuring out which direction to lay the balloon. The pi ball seems to be indicating fairly calm winds (~8 knots by my reckoning) at 950 feet AGL, but perhaps a little too strong halfway up. Britt is feeding us cookies.
0436h local:
Looks like they've picked a layout direction. CSBF is moving out the helium tanker trucks and the balloon spool truck (AKA "The Monster").
0446h local:
We're going to roll out to the pad in about 5-10 minutes.
0546h local:
We're out on the pad, on lithium (flight) batteries, and our pre-flight checks are done. We're now hands-off. The layout direction looks dead on to the direction indicated by the pi ball, though the wind is a little stronger than earlier both at the surface and at pi ball altitude. We're waiting for them to roll out the balloon.
0615h local:
The balloon has been unrolled!! They are installing the helium vent valves at the top and making the attachment to the parachute. Inflation could start as soon as 10-15 minutes.
0640h local, roughly:
Balloon inflation has begun! We're gonna launch or waste $150,000 worth of balloon and helium...
0712h local:
Balloon still inflating! Almost there...
0801h local:
LAUNCH!!!
0805h local:
There may be a problem with the elevation actuator. We set the elevation to approximately 60 degrees pre-launch, but on launch the elevation was observed to be extremely low. It's possible the actuator may have broken, meaning we will have no elevation control for the flight.
0947h local:
It indeed seems that our elevation actuator is broken. While we can still do the observations we hope to do, it will limit our flexibility in scheduling and making the observations. This is going to be the last post of this live-blog, as soon Britt and I will have to start driving so we can meet the payload after termination. I'll try and post again tonight.
0215h local:
Arrived at high bay. Moved gondola toward door and rotated around. Jeff has started closing up the cryostat access panel. Amber showed up 5 minutes prior after a heroic day of traveling, culminating in a 5 hour drive from El Paso. Milligan's dad showed up again too!
0230h local:
Pre-flight checkouts in progress. Should be picked up and out the door soon.
0340h local:
Gondola is out the door, baffles are open, flight train is attached, mirror is cleaned. Now lifting to remove the casters and put on the crush pads.
0413h local:
CSBF is figuring out which direction to lay the balloon. The pi ball seems to be indicating fairly calm winds (~8 knots by my reckoning) at 950 feet AGL, but perhaps a little too strong halfway up. Britt is feeding us cookies.
0436h local:
Looks like they've picked a layout direction. CSBF is moving out the helium tanker trucks and the balloon spool truck (AKA "The Monster").
0446h local:
We're going to roll out to the pad in about 5-10 minutes.
0546h local:
We're out on the pad, on lithium (flight) batteries, and our pre-flight checks are done. We're now hands-off. The layout direction looks dead on to the direction indicated by the pi ball, though the wind is a little stronger than earlier both at the surface and at pi ball altitude. We're waiting for them to roll out the balloon.
0615h local:
The balloon has been unrolled!! They are installing the helium vent valves at the top and making the attachment to the parachute. Inflation could start as soon as 10-15 minutes.
0640h local, roughly:
Balloon inflation has begun! We're gonna launch or waste $150,000 worth of balloon and helium...
0712h local:
Balloon still inflating! Almost there...
0801h local:
LAUNCH!!!
0805h local:
There may be a problem with the elevation actuator. We set the elevation to approximately 60 degrees pre-launch, but on launch the elevation was observed to be extremely low. It's possible the actuator may have broken, meaning we will have no elevation control for the flight.
0947h local:
It indeed seems that our elevation actuator is broken. While we can still do the observations we hope to do, it will limit our flexibility in scheduling and making the observations. This is going to be the last post of this live-blog, as soon Britt and I will have to start driving so we can meet the payload after termination. I'll try and post again tonight.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Day 78, 6/10/09 -- Once more into the breach
We got word today that tomorrow we will get another launch attempt. The winds look nice and low, and we've got high hopes. If we don't launch tomorrow, the winds don't look good for Friday or Saturday morning. The winds at float altitudes have gotten really strong -- up into the 40-50 knot range at the highest altitudes we'll be flying at, and somewhat lower (in the 20's) at our overnight altitudes if we decide to continue overnight.
Ilan re-cycled the fridges earlier today, Britt and I went through some information for the recovery crew (which will consist of me, Britt, and some CSBF personnel). We went through our day-before pre-flight checklist and then left for the evening. Plan is to show up at 2:15AM to get out the door by 2:30AM. I'll be live-blogging again too.
Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico061009#
Ilan re-cycled the fridges earlier today, Britt and I went through some information for the recovery crew (which will consist of me, Britt, and some CSBF personnel). We went through our day-before pre-flight checklist and then left for the evening. Plan is to show up at 2:15AM to get out the door by 2:30AM. I'll be live-blogging again too.
Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico061009#
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Day 77, 6/9/09 -- Back to flight mode.
FIREBall had a very successful flight, it seems. They terminated at about 10AM and landed near Cedar City, Utah. Initial reports indicate that they payload is in good shape (it fell over on landing, but that's to be expected) and they got a lot of good data.
After the few days off that everyone in the group took, it was time to get back to a flight-ready mindset. To that end, Ilan cycled our cryogenic system to get detectors cold and we ran a flight simulation to make sure that everyone still knew how to do what they needed to do.
As is typical for flight sims, there wasn't much for me to do. Because I already knew that we weren't going be able to attempt a launch tomorrow morning, I took the opportunity to prep and cook a brisket that I had bought over a week ago and had just been waiting for an opportunity to cook. I made a spice rub and let it marinate overnight in the fridge, and then got it cooking in the charcoal grill at the base at about noon. Six hours later, we were rewarded with this:
Needless to say, it disappeared rather quickly.
After the flight sim and brisket consumption, Jeff and I showed Kyle the ins and outs of filling cryogens on the gondola. Dan showed up in the evening as well. The plan for tonight is to do some star camera alignment and scan tests, so Jeff and I headed home.
Pictures today are of the brisket. You know, the important stuff.
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico060909#
After the few days off that everyone in the group took, it was time to get back to a flight-ready mindset. To that end, Ilan cycled our cryogenic system to get detectors cold and we ran a flight simulation to make sure that everyone still knew how to do what they needed to do.
As is typical for flight sims, there wasn't much for me to do. Because I already knew that we weren't going be able to attempt a launch tomorrow morning, I took the opportunity to prep and cook a brisket that I had bought over a week ago and had just been waiting for an opportunity to cook. I made a spice rub and let it marinate overnight in the fridge, and then got it cooking in the charcoal grill at the base at about noon. Six hours later, we were rewarded with this:
Needless to say, it disappeared rather quickly.After the flight sim and brisket consumption, Jeff and I showed Kyle the ins and outs of filling cryogens on the gondola. Dan showed up in the evening as well. The plan for tonight is to do some star camera alignment and scan tests, so Jeff and I headed home.
Pictures today are of the brisket. You know, the important stuff.
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/EBEXInNewMexico060909#
Monday, June 8, 2009
Day 76, 6/8/09 -- ...and then there was one.
FIREBall launched today.
They had a fairly late launch at about 11:45 AM, which is great for FIREBall -- it means they will get to spend more time at float in darkness.
The launch was not without complications. The winds were actually quite low, and the balloon went up very slowly compared to the NCT launch I saw roughly a month ago. Once they released the payload, it went basically straight up. The launch vehicle driver was backing away, but Big Bill can't go very fast so FIREBall hit the launch pin on the way up, scraping along the doors that cover their telescope. It looked (and sounded) fairly violent, and the FIREBall team was rightfully concerned that the doors might have been damaged and they wouldn't be able to open them once they got up to observing altitude:
FIREBall launch
Once they got high enough, they tried it -- and succeeded! It's now nearly 1AM, and the payload is over the Four Corners, drifting northwest at 22 knots at an altitude of nearly 113,000 feet. From what I hear, the mission is going well. Go FIREBall!
After the launch, we tied up some loose ends and most of us went to the lake house for a dip in the lake and some food. Britt and Michele returned late tonight, as well as Shaul and Ilan with a new addition in tow, Kyle.
The earliest opportunity we are likely to have to launch is Thursday (weather-dependent, of course).
Pictures of FIREBall launch:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/FIREBallLaunch#
They had a fairly late launch at about 11:45 AM, which is great for FIREBall -- it means they will get to spend more time at float in darkness.
The launch was not without complications. The winds were actually quite low, and the balloon went up very slowly compared to the NCT launch I saw roughly a month ago. Once they released the payload, it went basically straight up. The launch vehicle driver was backing away, but Big Bill can't go very fast so FIREBall hit the launch pin on the way up, scraping along the doors that cover their telescope. It looked (and sounded) fairly violent, and the FIREBall team was rightfully concerned that the doors might have been damaged and they wouldn't be able to open them once they got up to observing altitude:
FIREBall launch
Once they got high enough, they tried it -- and succeeded! It's now nearly 1AM, and the payload is over the Four Corners, drifting northwest at 22 knots at an altitude of nearly 113,000 feet. From what I hear, the mission is going well. Go FIREBall!After the launch, we tied up some loose ends and most of us went to the lake house for a dip in the lake and some food. Britt and Michele returned late tonight, as well as Shaul and Ilan with a new addition in tow, Kyle.
The earliest opportunity we are likely to have to launch is Thursday (weather-dependent, of course).
Pictures of FIREBall launch:
http://picasaweb.google.com/asad137/FIREBallLaunch#
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)