South Pole Weekly Report, November 22, 2008

Drill camp as seen from ICL with South Pole Station in the background.

Photo by J. Marty

IceCube population has been almost constant this week the total population stands at 47. Weather remains cold, still -41oC, sometimes a degree or two colder. However, visibility has been good and the total number of flights from McMurdo to South Pole now stands at 44. Drill camp received seed water and is now creating the Rodwell for the season. The Rodwell is the water supply for the hot water drill. With water in the system, the drill camp has moved to 24/7 operation. We now have 10 drillers per shift and 3 IceTop deployers working at the drill camp.

Of the approximately 225,000 lbs of IceCube repair or upgrade cargo scheduled for delivery to Pole week ending 11/22/08 we had 213,000 lbs delivered including two of the Surface To DOM Cables at over 15,000 lbs each. A key piece of drilling equipment, the Drill Supply Cable Reel arrived today, on schedule! Taking advantage of a purchasing opportunity this summer provided us with three ~368 cubic foot shipping containers known as MilVans. One of those 'mini vans' arrived today packed with assorted drill, safety, and instrumentation equipment, on schedule as well.

Drillers and IceTop deployers wait at the skyway crossing to return for lunch break.

Photo by T. Hannaford

Over half of the IceTop tanks have been delivered to date, but this falls short of our goal to have all of them to Pole by 11/22. IceTop tanks have been identified to the RPSC cargo supply chain for earliest delivery to Pole. The retrograde shipment of Data Magnetic Media Tapes went to McMurdo on Wednesday 11/19/08 and expedited shipping has been requested. DOM deliveries remain on schedule as we have on station enough DOMs to support 11 string installations. The remaining DOMs for this season are scheduled to arrive no later than the first week of January.

The drill camp is now fully connected to the DCC (Drill Control Center). Both Generators 1 and 3 are working. Seed water was delivered November 19 to fill Tank 1. By the end of the week, both Tower Operating Systems,TOS-1 and TOS-2 had been connected to their drill towers, and the return water reel as well as the TU-15 and TU-20 winches had been moved across to the SES (Seasonal Equipment Site, aka Drill Camp). Surface water hoses have been excavated and stretched out west of the SES for to be insulated. For fuel savings the SES site is switching over from electric heat to oil heat as much as possible. HPP (high pressure) pumps have all been rebuilt. This job was delegated it to all three shifts so everyone knows how to do that task. The drill system is on course for start of drilling in early December.

At the Drill Camp, all new smoke detectors/CO monitors were installed and tested to make certain that any alarm would be reported to the DCC computer. The Heat Rise sensors were also tested in each applicable building at the Drill Camp. We started testing the E-Stop system this week. This testing will be completed next week. We finally received the new shipment of compliant climber-style helmets for the dual-purpose of snowmobile head protection, as well as Drill Camp head protection. Now we have plenty of these helmets for the IceCubers. This week's topic at the Drillers Safety Meeing was Drill Camp Evacuation, Muster, and Roll Call procedures. This was a good review for the upcoming RPSC Rescue Team walks through and for the upcoming IceCube/RPSC Emergency Drill. We have completed 21 days without incidents.

Surface cable reels staged in front (grid South) of the ICL.

Photo by J. Haugen

The ICL is in the process of being organized and cleaned and is the main delivery location for all cable and IT materials. Over two tons of IT and cable materials were delivered this week and unloaded into the ICL. Seventeen Surface Cables, 21 Surface Junction boxes, one Low Energy surface junction box and two Surface to DOM cables are on station. We are preparing to place junction boxes in IceTop pits starting Monday, Nov 24 and surface cable trenching is scheduled to start on Saturday, Nov 29. Engineering Support and Cables population will increase on Tuesday, Nov 25.

This week in DOM Testing 32 IceTop DOMs picked from the ICL all passed and were subsequently handed over to the IceTop gang. These low temperatures we are seeing now make the plastic connectors very brittle, so connecting the DOMs is a delicate job and some connectors are damaged. Most of the time, as in this case, broken connectors can still be used if handled with care. In a second test group we broke no new connectors and 64 out of 64 DOMs passed, a mix of old ICL and newly arrived DOMs including 4 Japanese golden High Quantum Efficiency( HQE) DOMs. All DOMs from this test went to the buffer. The third test began by breaking 3 connectors. One was still working and the other two were put aside for later investigation. In this test we have 64 modules, including 15 IceTop DOMs and two HQE DOMs.

The IceTop weather port is in full operation. Refurbishment of the 28 Freeze Control Units (FCUs) from last season was completed. The full calibration and operational test of the 38 FCUs has started.

IceTop Freeze Control Units staged for testing and calibration if the IceTop Weatherport

Photo by J. Roth

Fourteen of the 19 IceTop pits have been excavated. Raytheon staff installed sunshade frames on the 20 tanks that have arrived so far. The RO (reverse osmosis) filter for IceTop is connected and ready for startup tests. The first batch of 34 IceTop DOMs was delivered to the Weatherport, and mounting of DOMs on hangers has begun.

The IceTop test tanks from 2003 were opened for inspection last week. The ice appears in good shape with good adhesion to the DOMs. The tanks were dark with only a minimal amount of the insulation removed. Visual inspection with a spotlight after smoothing the surface with alcohol shows that the pump at the bottom of Test Tank 10 is clearly visible.

All DAQ/IT cargo has arrived at Pole and most equipment has been installed in the racks. Cabling will take most of the next week. Upgrades and replacements will start in the next week. Raytheon is planning to do work on the ICL HVAC system to fix hot spots in the Data Center. In the meantime the station adjustments have been made to the second floor temperature controls to allow the temperature to be dropped further, and a large fan has been temporarily located in the Data Center to even out temperatures. This appears to have worked well and will allow additional equipment to be added before the HVAC work is completed.