Wed, 9/7/2011 - AAL-PIP Dry Run for 2011-2012 Deployment

Today, the second day of AAL-PIP dry run at VTech, we moved all of the boxes of the AAL-PIP system to an indoor place, Virginia Tech Dairy Science Complex as it was expected to rain today. Joseph asked around to find a place where we could do dry run inside for the rainy day and luckily found this perfect place for the purpose. We tried to simulate the entire process from the tower setup to end-to-end test with Steve Musko at University of Michigan. We started at around 8am and were able to finish at around 4pm, which is earlier than we thought it would be.

Because of the roof material that could block Iridium communication, the electronics box was located near the building door and all the science instruments including Iridium antenna were set up outside. Steve Musko at University of Michigan confirmed us that communication via Iridium satellite went through.

Tues, 9/6/2011 - AAL-PIP Dry Run for 2011-2012 Deployment

This year, there will be a total of six members for AAL-PIP deployment in Antarctica. Bob McPherron from UCLA and Gary Bust from ASTRA visited VTech to join the other AAL-PIP deployment team members including Bob Clauer, Majid Manteghi, Kshitija Deshpande, Joseph Macon and me (Hyomin Kim) from VTech. The dry runs scheduled for today and tomorrow are intended to give Bob McPherron, Gary Bust, and Majid Manteghi, who will be the first time visitors in Antarctica, hands-on experience of the AAL_PIP system ("System 5"). It is raining pretty heavily today so we stayed inside the Satellite Tracking Building at VTech, in which our instruments are located, to go over our system and especially to try to assemble the battery box, which might be somewhat challenging for the first-timers. We also practiced cables which connect between the electronics box and the battery box.

1/4/2010 Day 15: Back to the real life!

The C-17 that will bring us back to New Zealand landed at around 4am, which means we had to pack and be ready for boarding since 1am waiting for the plane at a cold terminal building near the ice runway. Although all of us looked very tired, we (at least, I) were very happy to be back to civilization. It's been quite an experience - hard work both at the Pole and field camp.Well, from now on, system maintenance and data analysis will await all the team members after we get back to the States.
 

 

 

The C-17 cabin en route to Christchurch, New Zealand where the exhausted passengers laid on the cabin floor. Some soldier even prepared sleeping bags for more comfortable sleep.

1/3/2010 Day 14: Returning to McMurdo Station

We are returning to McMurdo Station after we are all done with our mission at the Pole. I stopped by the System 4 station briefly before departure. It was so cloudy that there was no distinction between the sky and the ground - where is the horizon?

Our plane, LC-130, that will bring us back to McMurdo Station took off as scheduled - yay!!!

1/2/2010 Day 13: Finishing up the work

Today is the last official work day at the Pole. We finished up our work and prepared our retrograde cargo back to the US.We placed a Virginia Tech banner at the post of our equipment to celebrate our successful mission accomplishment. Hopefully, it will stay there until we come back next year.

 Me at the equipment site with the Virginia Tech banner

 

The new South Pole marker for 2011

 

 Me in front of the South Pole

1/1/2010 Day 12: Pole marker moving ceremony

Every new year's day at the Pole, pole marker moving ceremony is held as the Antarctic ice sheet moves in a certain direction at a certain speed. As a result, the pole marker is moved from one location to another location, which is 10 meters apart, to compensate the location of the geographic south pole. This is how fast Antarctica moves per year!

  

 After the ceremony, we got back to work to finish the System 4 Station. We are getting there!!

12/31/2010 Day 11: New Year's Eve

The South Pole crews gathered around the Pole to celebrate the new year 2011 right after midnight on Jan. 1. I usually celebrated New year's eve watching fireworks in the dark but the Sun here never goes down this time of year...