Tophat logo

Reports from the Field - January 2001

Overview
TopHat in Antarctica
Links

(Latest Reports)(February Reports)(December 2000 Reports)(A TopHat Christmas)(November 2000 Reports)(Antarctica Images)


Wednesday, January 31, 2001
TopHat is on the Ground!

We've just received word from Scott Hadley that the balloon is on the ground and that a Twin Otter presumably carrying Alex and Peterzen has landed at the impact site. The last anyone heard from Peterzen was early this afternoon when he called in to say that he and Alex were taking an Otter out to see if there was a decent terminate opportunity. Apparently he felt that there was. The exact location of the payload, according to the last GPS reading is: LAT: 85 deg, 5.7 min. South LON: 164 deg, 54.72 min. ALT: 2800 ft.


Wednesday, January 31, 2001
Greetings from the South Pole
By A. Bier

As most of you are undoubtedly aware, TopHat continues to hover over the Queen Maud Mountains, trying to decide if it’s going to land on the Amundsen Glacier or the Axel Heiburg Glacier. It hardly matters—they are both equally horrible. The amount of snow and ice has flattened the landscape, so there is no shortage of landing areas for either the balloon or the Twin Otter recovery airplane. The problem lies in making sure you can get from one to the other. The flowing ice has created crevasse fields everywhere. Crossing one of these would require more people and money than we have.

South Pole Station is an interesting place. After McMurdo, it’s tiny and quiet. The galley can seat dozens, not hundreds. Nearly all the facilities are located under the dome. Access is through giant steel culverts with an inch of frost on the inside—the frozen moisture from people’s breath. The dark corners can get spooky.

 The dome is scheduled to come down in a few years, of course, so it’s hard not to get a bit nostalgic about it. Seems a bit silly since I’ve only been here for nine hours or so. It’s likely the altitude is making me silly: I was at sea level this morning, and now I’m at the equivalent of about 10,500 feet. We are under orders to avoid caffeine, smoking, and alcohol, and to drink at least a gallon of water a day. This is not something to mess around with; I develop a small headache after spending too much time inside or thinking too hard. Don’t expect this update to go on much longer...

 Accommodations are surprisingly good. I am in the temporary summer dorms, a field of Jamesways that will be taken down in a few weeks. I even have a private room—if you can call a 7x7 foot cubicle partitioned with a curtain private. In truth it’s much nicer than I was expecting, and about two orders of magnitude better than what I’d be willing to endure to get our disks back.

 Tomorrow we will see if the balloon has moved over the high plateau, where recovery will merely be difficult as opposed to impossible. In addition, the Twin Otter arrives, so we will be able to perform the termination from here rather than waiting for an LC-130 flight to the pole with room for the NSBF pallet.


Saturday - January 27, 2001
By E. Cheng

The past day or so has not seen much improvement in the balloon location. The payload has been wandering in and around the transantarctic mountain range, making it impractical to cut it down. It also seems like it is more likely to head south (towards the pole) rather than come back north onto the Ross Ice Shelf (it is only about 3 degrees from the pole).

Nothing much else we can do but wait some more ... fortunately, it is right in the flight path between McMurdo and the South Pole, making it possible to hitch a ride on any of a large number of aircraft that are now diligently stocking up the pole for the winter.

We will fly out there again in a day or so.


Thursday - January 25, 2001
By E. Cheng

This morning, two of the NSBF ballooning staff hitched a ride on a plane going to the South Pole to observe the area underneath TopHat The intent was to cut down the payload if the terrain looked amenable to recovering the equipment.

They concluded that it was not suitable for recovery, so we continue to wait for TopHat to move to a more convenient area.

Those watching the unfolding drama of the TopHat trajectory will note that it has drifted fairly far South, being only about 5 degrees from the South Pole (it started at McMurdo, which is about 12 degrees away from the South Pole). The winds are no longer very regular, and it has been wandering about at the far edge of the Ross Ice Shelf for a few days now (meaning the edge away from McMurdo).

We will try again tomorrow.

At this point, it would be very convenient for it to start drifting North again, which will bring it back onto the Ice Shelf proper, and make recovery relatively straightforward. Drifting South some more would be bad since this would put in well into the transantarctic range.

All of the TopHat crew are now back at their home institutions with the exception of the 4 brave souls who will be performing the recovery feat. They continue to consume the exquisite McMurdo cuisine, and bask in the light of the midnight Sun (which is getting more and more dusk-like as the days progress). First sunset (however momentary) is February 20, and the last flight out of McMurdo is February 24. We were noticing even this week that one can definitely tell that "night" is coming soon. Perhaps this is the cause of some of the strange behavior we are hearing about ... cafeteria murder attempts, arriving at work late and incoherent, harassment of local creatures ...


Wednesday - January 17, 2001
By E. Cheng

The main activities for the past few days are recovery preparations, analysis, packing, and resting up.

First, recovery. We have been having many discussion about this with the NSBF and NSF people here. It is getting to be the end of the season, and airplane flights are getting very short. (In fact, some of our folks down here have been waiting almost a week to get back to Christchurch.)

An additional complication is a paperwork issue that caused the NSF people here to think that we did not need recovery support. Fortunately, this is getting all worked out. While we may not be able to recover the entire payload this year, there is general agreement that we will have the resources to try to retrieve our hard disks that contain the flight data. Meanwhile, Bob and Peter and the folks at home are busily practicing and testing the high speed data dump in case we need to use it to read these disks. Some of these tests will be run through the equipment here at McMurdo that will be used for the actual event, if we decide to do it.

The payload is still moving at about the projected (slow) rate. We are a little more than half way around, and it has been about 13 days. We’re still thinking that it should complete its trip in another week and a half.

Some of the folks here and at home have been analyzing the first two days of data that we got at the beginning of the flight through the line-of-sight telemetry. These are looking good, and the pointing reconstruction is very encouraging. We can see preliminary maps of the sky that show things like the galaxy and other features in the correct places. All this is very good news and it will get us more ready to analyze the full data set when we get our hands on it!

Packing is going well, but there is still a lot of time to complete this onerous but necessary task. You may notice that the lab webcam is no more, and the outdoor webcam is now in McMurdo town. They are even starting to look into taking down the structure we are working in! (We won’t move until after the package is cut down, and we are certain that we will not need the ground station setup for the data dump. This setup is currently working, and we do not want to take the risk of ripping it apart just to move it into the next building over.)

Resting up is good. I think we’ve all caught up a little on sleep. We’re now all awake enough to notice that the food may be better elsewhere, and it is time to think about going home. On Sunday, we went on a short boat ride on the Coast Guard ice breaker. That was a fun diversion. Look for some pictures soon.

Unfortunately, the airplane schedules are very full these days, and some of the crew here have been waiting since Sunday to return to Christchurch. This problem is compounded by mechanical failures in two of the LC-130 planes recently. For example, the next flight out is Thursday, for which we need to "bag drag" (or check in) this evening (Wednesday). Currently, there are over 100 people scheduled for that light, which can only take 40 passengers. The next flight out would be the following Tuesday! Well, better to take the time to repair the airplanes ...


Thursday, January 11, 2001 p.m.
By E. Cheng

We have looked at the data from last night’s underflight, and have confirmed that the payload was in excellent shape except that the cryogen had run out. This was only a short data fragment, but it was enough.

The payload was shut down at 10:30 pm January 10 (McMurdo local), after 6 full days in flight. The powered-down payload will be circling Antarctica until the balloon base folks decide that it is over an area that is good for recovery. They will then terminate the flight.

The payload is moving very slowly, and is about 100 degrees around the 360 degree path. It is farther South than McMurdo, which is good because it allows for more margin to land on the Ross Ice Shelf, which extends from McMurdo’s latitude to the south. The Ice Shelf is the best place to land for straightforward recovery. We expect that it will be over the Ice Shelf around January 24, but wind conditions may change. Check the web site for realtime information on the balloon location.

We are cleaning up the lab, and some of us will be leaving in a few days. Alex, James, Jeff, and Tom will be staying for recovery and final packing. Alex will be going to the landing site.

I will post updates as we get new information on recovery plans, and we’ll continue to post pictures on the web site.

Tomorrow, Friday, we will be taking a day off. Rumor has it that we will be looking for some penguins ...


Wednesday, January 10, 2001
Evening Report
By E. Cheng

This evening, at around 2230 (local McMurdo), Grant called back from the airplane and reported that he has acquired TopHat LOS telemetry, and that the cryostat is warming up.

He is shutting own the payload according to our command plan.

TopHat has completed its data acquisition after a little over 6 days of flight. We are now anticipating a rapid and successful recovery by the NSBF.


Wednesday, January 10, 2001
Late Afternoon Report
By E. Cheng

Fly-Under Images

The airplane with Grant and the telemetry equipment has departed.

His flight was a little delayed from the original plan.

Takeoff was supposed to be at 1600, and is actually around 1830. ETA is around 3.5 hours, so first contact is expected around 2200 (local time). We will have about 2 hours on station before the plane has to go on to Vostok for refueling. Total elapsed time for Grant to return is approximately 10 to 11 hours (around 0430 to 0530).


Wednesday, January 10 2001
Afternoon Report
By E. Cheng

We’ve had a very busy couple of days figuring out what we can be doing that will be best for TopHat The result is that we have an airplane to fly us out to the payload’s position to get some data back, as well as allowing us to send commands as necessary. This airplane is scheduled to leave McMurdo at 1600 on January 10 local time, and will take around 4 hours to get to the payload. It will then refuel at the Russian Vostok station, which is quite close to the payload’s current position, and then return to McMurdo.

Grant Wilson has courageously volunteered to make this trip, and is fully dressed in his Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear in case the plane has to disgorge him in the middle of the Antarctic plateau.

To do this, we have dismantled the redundant part of our ground station here at McMurdo, and put it on to a pallet that will be loaded into an LC-130. This took an entire day to complete and test. Grant will have the ability to look at the data as carefully as we can back at the lab.

We have not received any more telemetry from the payload, and we are anxious to find out how it is doing. Here are a few ways things could happen.

1. If the cryostat has run out of cryogen, then we turn the payload off in order to eliminate any chances of a malfunction affecting the data already recorded.

2. If the cryostat is still operational, then Grant will check on the payload status and then send it on its merry way.

3. If something unexpected has happened, and the cryostat is still operational, then Grant will send the necessary commands to correct the situation.

By the time the airplane arrives at the payload location, we would have completed almost exactly 6 full days of flight. It would not be astonishing if the cryostat has run out, though of course, we would prefer to get a little more data.

Meanwhile, back at the computers both at McMurdo and at home, our team has looked hard at the data we collected at the beginning of the flight. So far, everything looks very good.

We’re busy getting things ready for Grant’s trip. We’ll surely have more to report after we have made contact with the payload.


Monday - January 8, 2001 p.m.
By E. Cheng

We are into the fourth day of the flight. Evidently, the winds have slowed down, so we’re not even a quarter of the way around yet. This may make for a very long flight before the package can come "home" to McMurdo. At the current rate, it will take at least 20 days, so we would expect it back after January 24. We are thinking very hard about what we should do next, read on ...

First, an update on the TDRSS data link situation. We had been getting intermittent contacts with the payload until recently, and this has served us well. Unfortunately, we have not heard from it for about 10 hours now.

Here’s what our experts can figure out from the small amount of data they have been able to retrieve. It looks like the TDRSS "transponder", or communication radio, is consuming much less power than normal, and thus not transmitting properly. It also appears that the transponder is cooling down, which is consistent with consuming less power.

Unfortunately, this is a very typical "vicious cycle" with hardware in extreme environments. With the temperature dropping, the electronics are less and less likely to turn back on, and the electronics need to be on before the temperature can warm up. We have some other indications that the problem has been temperature related. For the past few days, the dropouts have been occurring near high noon on the package. This is one of the times of daily temperature extremes. We do not know what is wrong in detail, but it is clear that we need to seriously plan for a complete loss of contact through TDRSS.

With the transponder down, we also have lost the capability to command using TDRSS. This makes it difficult for us to execute certain tests that are very desirable, and which the payload cannot do by itself. Consequently, we are working with the NSBF and NSF to arrange for an airplane to "fly under" the payload so we can use the normal line-of-sight communication channels. This would allow us to send the appropriate commands, as well as retrieve some data on how the payload is doing.

Right now, we have agreement that we can have a flight two days from now, and we are working on whether we can have one sooner than that. Given the extreme shortage of available airplane flights and the fact that they are already overbooked for normal operations, we are really appreciative of this excellent support from the folks down here for a situation for which we had not requested resources.

We are also getting a little concerned about the slowness of the winds, and the long time that it will take to circumnavigate the continent. Such long flights increase the chances that the payload may end up over the water.

That would be bad, since with the TDRSS problem, we are relying solely on the data that is being stored in the on-board hard drives. Therefore, we are starting the planning for a potential end-of-flight high speed data dump, where we command the payload to do a high-speed playback of the recorded data (at a 10 to 1 increase in rate, or 1 day to transmit 10 days of data). We could choose to implement this by an underflight, or with normal LOS should the payload come close enough to McMurdo again. These plans are still being discussed, so stay tuned.

The slowness of the winds allows us to consider the possibility of cutting down the payload near the Russian base at Vostok. This has the advantage of allowing us to terminate the flight early, thus increasing our chances of getting the best recovery support before the end of the season takes away all the air transport resources. Of course, we would have to be flying slowly enough so that our cryogens run out while we are still within recovery range of Vostok. We’ll have to keep an eye on the winds to make this call. Right now, we are moving very slowly, and are about a day away from Vostok, so this option is viable.

The condition of the payload was still very good the last time we had contact with it. There is one major unexpected configuration that we discovered while looking at the returned data. It seems that, instead of pointing straight up, the TopHat telescope axis is tilted about 5 degrees.

We are not sure what is causing this. We were anticipating at most a 1 degree tilt, and expecting closer to 0.2 degrees. We are fairly certain that this was not seen in the two instrumented test flights for the top package, so it may be a peculiarity of this particular balloon. We are still evaluating the effects of this tilt. At first glance, there are some advantages and some potential disadvantages of this configuration. How it all works out will not be known until we have done some more analysis, but the data are looking good.


Sunday - January 7, 2001
By G.Wilson

Greetings once again.

Please forgive me in advance if I ramble along jubilantly. Now that our telescope is aloft at 120,000 feet, there is a sense of relief, euphoria, and general happiness that has settled over our group. The launch was as docile as can be, the flight is going well so far, and the data pouring in looks a lot like we expected it to. What more could we ask for?

With the successful launch of the TopHat telescope and its subsequent data acquisition, we have now moved over to an official shift-based schedule. I’ve got to hand it to our Team 1 - Dave, James, Tom, Alex, and Hans Ulrik. These guys ran continuously on adrenaline for the entire launch day and then pulled an all-nighter once we got to observing altitudes. Not only did they stay awake and alert, they made decisions and analyses that we are now happily operating with. As someone who has driven long distances late at night with Tom, I’ve gotten used to trusting him at times of low sleep. My only fear on our first night of flight was that there was no McDonalds off the highway to provide a late-night cherry pie buzz.

Team 2 - myself, Steve, Jeff, DeLee, Tammy, Becky, and Gwynne - pulled the long strawed 7:00 am to 7:30 PM shift. (Okay, so it helped that I made up the shift schedule.) Our primary responsibility is to watch the data coming in, perform analysis, and seek out sources of trouble or inconsistency for correction. As it turns out, the telescope is running very well autonomously and we have yet to have to intervene on its behalf. This is a fortunate state of being since our telemetry contact through the TDRSS satellite has been spotty and looks like it is fading. As Ed explained yesterday, this puts much more emphasis on our successfully getting the onboard data storage disks back once the package is cut out of the sky.

What is a typical shift like? Well, you may be surprised how unexciting it is when things are working well. We watch the cryostat signals to see that they are nominal. We monitor the temperatures of various parts of the two payloads. And we watch the detector and pointing signals to confirm that we are still performing our standard observing pattern. Really, the excitement never ends out at Willy Field!

Since it is so mind numbing to continuously watch data pour into your lap, we have started thinking about the next step - data analysis. This is, after all, our new vocations and we are overjoyed with it. As balloon-payload instrument builders, we generally spend 3-5 years building and testing an experiment, 2-4 months preparing for the flight, 8 hours at float (for a Texas based flight) and a single year analyzing the data. Analyzing data is great! You get to sit still at a computer writing code, no traveling, no incessant opening and closing of dewars, no physical problems at all ... ah ... You can even scream and yell at your computer with no worries of hurting its feelings. What a life. Of course, with TopHat we are entering a new regime in terms of the total amount of data we will have to work with. Instead of the typical 8 hours, we now have three days of data in the can and we are expecting more to come.

So if you check out the web cam tonight and see us smiling, you’ll understand why. We’ve got work ahead of us but we are looking forward to it more than ever.


Saturday - January 6, 2001
Update for the Morning at McMurdo
By E. Cheng

Well folks, it has been a hectic few days. While you have gotten used to the exquisite prose from Grant, he is to busy raveling in the data, entertaining thoughts of fame and fortune, to be writing any updates for a while. I figured we should get something out to our loyal readers soon.

We are into the second day of our flight, and things are still going very well.

The balloon will soon have traveled far enough to lose line-of-sight telemetry and command contact. This is what we use when the payload is within 300 miles or so, and we can get radio contact with the payload directly. As it flies farther away, we use the NASA Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) for our communications. This is the same system that supports Space Shuttle missions (and all the live video we get from them), the Hubble Space Telescope, and other near-Earth orbit missions. It only underscores that being in Antarctica is more than a little like being out in space!

Our first problem is that the TDRSS data coming back is not reliable. We lose some of this data intermittently. This is not too bad, since we still get a pretty good idea of how the payload is doing, even with intermittent contacts. If we lost this capability entirely, the mission can still go on because the payload is capable of operating autonomously. However, we would not *chose* to do this for obvious reasons. It's a little like sending a child by itself on a commercial airline flight as an "unaccompanied minor"! So far, the data have been sufficiently reliable for us to execute the normal flight plan which is controlled by people on the ground.

You may wonder what effects this may have on the scientific data. In the short term, it means that Grant will not have the data analyzed and published before the payload lands. This is because there will be missing gaps in the data from the telemetry, and these will probably prevent a full analysis. However, all of the data are recorded on hard disks inside the bottom payload. After recovery, we will have the entire data set, free from these gaps.

As far as we can tell, TopHat is doing great. The detectors are working, the telescope is spinning, we see signals from the sky that we should be seeing, temperatures are stable, the cryogenics are working normally ... overall, we have a pretty happy machine up there.

All the temperatures and operating conditions are very stable now, and have been after the first day or so. This allows us to perform very careful performance checks on the machine. Our job in the near term is to make sure everything is working as expected. After that, it should get very routine.

You can check our flight path in real time from the link on our main web page. Our webcam inside the lab is also working fairly well, so you can watch us watch the data (actually, it should be and is pretty boring most of the time).

Oh ... and check out the new launch movie that Tammy and DeLee made.


Friday - January 5, 2001
Happy New Year!
By G. Wilson

I see that it has been more than a week since I've updated anyone on our progress. Well, it sure wasn't because I've been napping with the seals out on the ice flows. We've been super busy for the past 10 days; sleeping very little, working very hard, and making great progress. In fact, we made such good progress with the telescope that yesterday we were able to take advantage of an anomonously windless day and have a successful launch! Yes, TopHat is off the ground and in the air collecting data as I write. It's kind of hard to imagine ... six years of our work is now circling Antarctica and peering into the heavens to try to unlock some mysteries of the universe. How cool is that?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. It was only Christmas the last time I wrote and Christmas now seems like it came years ago. Well, right after Christmas we were back at work hammering away on getting the experiment ready. These days were tough; get up from the sleeping bag at 7:00 am, work until our lunchtime meeting, back to work after grabbing a bite at the galley, push on through until dinner, and then back to work afterwards until midnight. Where in that schedule is there time to shower? Well, if I was quick I could usually get to my toothbrush and deodorant in the mornings before getting too busy. If not ... well ... people would think twice before getting too close - an effective way of getting some privacy in a very public place!

Yes, over the past few days we've been working hard. We tested the telescope. We built some last minute flight pieces. We even opened the cryostat (the "brains" of the experiment) and fiddled with one of the detectors a bit. We put our proverbial noses to the grindstone and cranked away until, finally, we were ready to fly on Thursday morning. This would be our first possible launch opportunity according to the weatherman - and if we missed it, we would not get another chance until the following Sunday and if the weather stayed bad for the following two weeks, we would not fly at all and our efforts would be for naught.

Fortunately, luck and hard work paid off and Thursday morning we were ready for the NSBF folks to take us out to the launch pad. The weatherman had predicted that there would be nice low winds between 1:00 am and 1:00 PM and then the situation would deteriorate. We knew we wouldn't make it for a launch in that time frame but we decided that it would be good practice to try anyway. Imagine my surprise when I walked out of the lab for the first time on Thursday morning and found that it was snowing! The weatherman was right, not a bit of wind around ... but it was SNOWING! We can't launch in the snow! ... well, we continued with our preparations hoping that fate would smile on us and the skies would clear for just long enough to get the balloon off the ground.

Now the way we were set up was quite peculiar. In the morning they came to first pick up our bottom gondola - the traditional gondola that hangs below the balloon and supplies the telescope on top with power and our instructions. Our telescope was, in fact, already on top of the balloon, but remember, the deflated balloon is nearly 3000 lbs of mylar stored away in a huge wooden box big enough to throw a tea party in. Our telescope was perched up above this box and, in the end, stood about 8 feet off the ground. Meanwhile, workers for the balloon base and scientists scurried around underneath getting things ready. And still it continued to snow.

Roll out to the launch pad was very cool. First, a big ladder truck came to pick up the bottom gondola. The Balloon Facility support staff hung their solar panels (to give power to their own electronics) and then it was time to head out to the pad. Yes, it was snowing all the while. Good thing we had taken the time to cover all our electronics well. All we needed was for a few snowflakes to get inside and POOF .. . we'd have to take it all apart and repair the shorted pieces. Fortunately, nothing like that happened and the roll out of the bottom gondola to the pad went smoothly.

The top package was next. How do you get a 250 pound telescope sitting on top of a 3000 pound balloon inside of a 1000 pound box out to the launch pad? Well, it helps to have a snow driveway, a 1000 pound sled, and a snow-tread equipped bulldozer, that's for sure. This monster bulldozer pulled right up inside the lab, hooked the sled, and dragged the entire show out to the pad. It was amazing to see. I walked along behind the sled as the tail end of the parade and simply marveled at the sight the whole way.

The launch pad itself is nothing more than a very large circle cut into the snow. The diameter of the circle is about 1/2 mile - making it a very long walk around the circumference. The pad is plowed and leveled every day to keep the snow packed and smooth. This is very important for the safety of the launch vehicle that needs to be able to chase a rising balloon. Out on the pad were several bulldozers (the heavy lifting vehicle of choice in Antarctica), several snowmobiles for covering the large distances quickly, a crane, and the launch vehicle itself. The entire operation requires about 30 support personnel to pull off safely.

When we got to the pad it was still snowing (the light an wispy variety) and we were getting mighty nervous. Our telescope was well covered so we weren't worried about accumulating snow but we were concerned about depositing a layer of water on our telescope mirrors. That would be disastrous to our data and we would never know it was there. The launch plan of lifting the telescope by its sun shield had the unexpected consequence that we had a rigid cover over the telescope. For the time being, at least, there was no worry about snow getting inside!

Once set up on the pad, the seemingly interminable waiting began. First we had to do our check-outs - a series of tests designed to uncover any problems with the telescope before we launch. We were under very heavy pressure to get the checks done as quickly as possible since the weatherman had said that the conditions were deteriorating as the evening came on. But we took our time anyway, testing our standard functions as completely as we could. There is no sense in launching a broken telescope after all! Don't get me wrong though, we all wanted to launch and those of us out on the pad who couldn't see the progress were getting torn up inside with how long all the testing was taking.

Finally it was done, the balloon was laid out for inflation, and we were ready to go.

But what about the weather? This was the time to decide if the launch would happen or not. Once the balloon is unwrapped from its protective sheath it is either launched or thrown in the trash can - and at $50,000 per balloon, that can make for a pretty tough decision. Fortunately, during the long checkout the weather had made a turn in our favor. In fact, I noticed at the time that a patch of blue sky had opened up right above us while a dense cloud cover had set up in the distance all around us. I could no longer see Erabus, McMurdo, or the surrounding mountains but straight up was a beautiful cold blue sky. It was as if TopHat were given a message that the only place to go was up. The sign was there and it was time to go for it!

So how do you put a telescope on top of a balloon? You may be surprised. The technique used was to blow up a tow balloon (a much smaller balloon) that would lift our telescope and the deflated balloon into the air. This process took about an hour and the telescope ended up hoisted about 200' in the air trailing the upper portion of the deflated main balloon beneath. Finally it was time for main balloon inflation. This took another hour and required several tanker trucks of helium to complete. When it was all done we had a quite a sight to behold. On top was a large balloon holding onto the top of TopHat which was resting on top of a gigantic balloon. That balloon was being held at its base by a 15,000 pound spool truck which acts as a pulley between the launch vehicle (still holding the bottom gondola) and the balloon.

With the main balloon inflated it was now time for the tow balloon release. NSBF had installed explosive wire-cutters (squibs) to liberate the tow balloon from TopHat It worked like a charm. The tow balloon broke free just at the right time and carried all its hardware away with it - just as NSBF had planned. This provided our telescope with its first unobstructed view of the sky for days.

At 8:03 PM Antarctic time, the spool was pulled and the main balloon was released. It was simply spectacular. With the momentary loss of tension in the flight train the balloon twisted, morphed, and then began climbing into the sky. It always strikes me how much these balloons resemble a Chesapeake Bay jellyfish at this stage. With helium rushing back and forth inside, the balloon seems to swim skyward. This time, our telescope was on top to enjoy the ride!

Once the balloon had stood up, and with a bit of fancy driving by the Balloon Facility rigging crew, the gondola was brought underneath and the whole kit and caboodle was released for its voyage. Up and up it went as we cheered it on. It was truly an inspirational moment for us to see it all happen and we could do nothing more than stare as it flew skyward.

So now here we are a few days later (yes, it's taken me a few days to find the time to write this note). The data is coming in and for the most part it looks just great! But this is just the beginning of our long flight. We've got a long way to go so we have some sleepless nights left before it's all over.

By the way, there is now a film of the launch available on our web site (http://topweb.gsfc.nasa.gov).

Next time: how does all that data look anyway?

Still in a celebratory mood


TopHat Launch Day Schedule for launch opportunity January 4, 2001
(Schedule is subject to change)

Legend:
P = Pickup
L = Launch
Event Time
(Duration)

1) TopHat crew arrives at weatherport 8:00 am

- re-boot Antarctic flight groundstation computers
- reboot Palestine flight groundstation computers
- create free disk space on Antarctic computers (1.5 Mblocks)
- create free disk space on Palestine computers (1.5 Mblocks)
- start pre-flight archive per EC instructions
- start preflight archive per EC instructions
- push bottom gondola out onto deck
- power up thread and connect to net
- Bottom Gondola Checkout

2) Long Top System Checkout 9:00 am (30m)

- be sure to run on solar panel power

3) NSBF pickup of bottom package P = 9:30 am

- rigging does mechanical work of lifting ~30m duration
- electrical mounts solar panels, etc. 1h to 2h duration
- support NSBF activities
- final compatibility test

4) NSBF brings bottom package to launch site L-5h40m (30m)

- spool of cable must go with
- go to pad for remainder of pre-launch

5) NSBF sets up launch equipment on pad L-5h10m (1h)

- last bottom gondola checkout

6) NSBF returns to pick up top package on sled L-4h10m (30m)

7) Top package is brought out to launch pad L-3h40m (1h)

- personnel ready to link bottom and top package via spool
- go to pad for remainder of pre-launch

8) Long Top System Checkout with top package on balloon box L-2h40m (30m)

9) NSBF lowers top package to ground and lays out balloon L-2hr10m (30m)

- connection made thru flight wiring when complete
- 1000' spool rolled back up and removed from pad

10) Short Top Checkout on flight wiring and flight power L-1h40m (10m)

11) Tow balloon inflation L-1h30m (20m)

12) Main balloon inflation L-70m (1h)

- end preflight archive, begin Antarctic flight archives (DC)
- end preflight archive, begin Palestine flight archives

13) Tow balloon release L-10m

14) Orientation of top package L-9m (3-5m)

15) Spool release L


Tuesday - January 2, 2001

Check out our world!
TopHat Movie (realplayer)
large (4.3 MB) small (1 MB)

Greetings from the New Year.

Tonight's note will be short and to the point ... I am too tired to be verbose and witty. Our first possible launch attempt will be Thursday (Wednesday in the States). We are too busy to get overly excited but the prospect of launching in a few days is looming large. It is important that we not get our hopes up too much though.

While our launch preparations are going very smoothly, the weather is not cooperating. Currently, and this changes every day, the forecast is for a brief lull in the winds on Thursday followed by a few days of stand-down while a new weather system passes. Keep your fingers crossed!

Today was a mighty day. We have made the big move of both TopHat packages from our weatherport to the "pig barn" next door. The pig barn is quite nice in that the heaters work better but it lacks the ambiance of the big tent we call home - no music, no coffee maker, and no web cam. What if I want to change clothes for bed with 1000 Internet peeping toms watching? Fortunately, I still have the key to our old lab.

In the pig barn we are mounted on top of the balloon - about six feet off the ground. Imagine taking your grand piano and mounting it at scalp-height in your garage. Pretty daunting isn't it? Well, having TopHat loom large over us with the balloon's petal assembly radiating out from its base is quite impressive. After spending much of the afternoon working on getting the telescope in place our launch director (the ever-impressive Victor from NSBF) looked at the package, looked at me, and said, "This is nuts ... but it's going to be great!"

Today we also spritz-tested the telescope. This is an important test because it tells us how much of a contaminant the sun will be to our data. Fortunately, the test shows that the sun will be, at worst, a secondary concern of ours. The test also showed that our new secondary is performing up to snuff. This new secondary allows TopHat to probe the sky with even better resolution than we had originally planned.

With great regret, today we suffered the loss of Jim to civilization. For those who don't know him, Jim is an undergraduate at the University of Chicago who joined our group in the spring and has been consistently impressing us ever since. After a few months working for us in Chicago it was clear that we wanted him to join us in Antarctica and fortunately he took us up on our offer. And not without consequences. During his stay here Jim finished his atomic physics course and ended up doing his homework, labs, and final exam by fax machine (I won't tell you his final grade ... but it rhymes with the Canadian word for "isn't that so?"). Now Jim is enjoying Christchurch, NZ and we are left without his cheerful presence. He won't get far though. Jim is on-tap to help us monitor the package when it flies. He'll spend hours in front of the computer yet. Isn't that right Jim?

Well, it's starting to get exciting folks. We are going to try to rest tonight and then start the big push to get this guy off the ground! Stay tuned, this show's opening its final act and it's promising to be a big ta-doo.

[MAIN PAGE] [BROCHURE] [HISTORY] [TUTORIAL] [NEW TECHNOLOGY] [IMAGES] [BIBLIOGRAPHY] [DATA] [EMPLOYMENT] [DIRECTORY] [CONTACTS] [GUESTBOOK]