South Pole Weekly Report, November 30, 2008

Thanksgiving Dinner

Photo by J. Roth

The 50 member IceCube team at the South Pole celebrated Thanksgiving on November 29 with other research groups and staff of Raytheon Polar Services Company.

Of the ∪315,000 total lbs of IceCube repair or upgrade cargo scheduled for delivery to Pole for the week ending November 29 we had ~330,000 lbs delivered including five more Surface To DOM Cables. A small number of crates that air shipped from PSL late in the summer containing drill and deployment equipment that have been identified to the RPSC Cargo or "hot listed" for delivery to Pole remain to arrive. This equipment is essential for season tasks but not required for drill start up. All required IceTop tanks and surface cables have been delivered to Pole as of November 27.

The SES (drill camp) is now fully connected and ready for drilling operations. Generators 1 and 3 are working and together can supply sufficient power for drilling. Generator 2 is undergoing tests, and a positive outcome is expected (but not guaranteed) at this point. Creation of the Rodwell (reserve water) is well advanced and ready to supply water for drilling. All safety protocols have been carried out for the heaters and high pressure pumps have been tested and are ready. Attention is now focused on the main hose reel and preparation of the TOS/drill towers and the winches.

Checklist from preliminary drill readiness meeting, Saturday, November 29.

Photo by J. Haugen

There is a substantial list of actions to be accomplished before drilling can begin, all of which are scheduled for completion early in the coming week. There will be two Pre Drill meetings with all drillers on December 2 and 3. If the result of the Pre Drill meetings is positive, drilling can begin soon thereafter.

The first scheduled hole of the season (for String 18) is just on the perimeter of the drill camp toward the ICL. The photo below shows the components of the operation coming together.

At the Drill Camp and the ICL, we hosted a walk-through for the RPSC Rescue Teams. We marched some 50 people through both facilities in about 90 minutes. The tours were well received by all. They asked good questions. Everyone seemed concerned and respectful of the hazards at both sites, but particularly at the Drill Camp. They got the layouts of the sites, the locations of the hazardous equipment, and the locations of the safety equipment. We also reviewed the Drill Camp Evacuation procedures with the teams. The Driller Safety Meetings continue. This week we had a break away session covering the use of the AED (Automated Electronic Defibrillator) and its application in the field. This training was geared for those who missed the session in Madison this year. No Lost Time Injuries and 0 OSHA Reportable incidents reported this week.

The drillers have done a great job of gathering most of the installation equipment and placing it on the southeast corner of the Seasonal Equipment Site. All of the weights, Yale grips, and most of the cables are lined up and ready for the start of the season. The DOM Testers have already completed the first few string tests and the DOMs for those strings are now sitting next to Tower 1 & 2 waiting for their opportunity. Unfortunately, all of the Paro Scientific pressure sensors we expected have not arrived. They are still in McMurdo and should arrive before the first installation begins.

DOM testing proceeded on schedule. Overall no DOMs have failed so far, though we have seen a few light leaks for DOMs close to the corners of the sled. They were all fine when retested somewhere else.

Crew clearing the trench for cable to Station 6

Photo by J. Haugen

A major accomplishment of the week was to prepare the trench and deploy five cables in Trench 1, including the surface cable for the deep core prototype string L. A partial collapse of the trench in an area of soft snow required digging by hand to finish the trench. Surface cables are being connected to the surface junction boxes on Sunday. Preparations for connecting the cables in the first trench inside the ICL in the coming week are well advanced.

Mounting "Scott" and "Amundsen" in Tank 37-A

Photo by E. Verhagen

Work has begun on upgrading and adding new servers. So far the processing and filtering master server has been replaced with a new more powerful server and this has allowed the installation of an additional UPS unit which will provide power to additional processing servers and buffer storage. System monitoring is being improved to provide fast notification of issues that may affect detector up-time. It will also provide a means of producing reports which will help with system optimization in the future and reporting of performance.

This week the remaining IceTop tanks arrived on station. Raytheon uncrated each tank as they came in, delivered them to the drill camp staging area and installed the sunshade frames. So far, 24 tanks have been placed in 12 Pits. We received the DOMs named after the explorers Roald Amundsen and Robert F. Scott.

Winter Overs connect the IceTop section of an SJB

Photo by J. Roth

We prepared these famous DOMs for installation into an IceTop tank and plan to install Amundsen and Scott in the same IceTop tank where they will remain side by side as long as the tanks remain in the ice. Calibration and testing of the Freeze Control Units (FCUs) continues. All 28 FCUs used last season have been checked out and are ready for installation in the tanks for yet another season. Four of the 10 FCUs sent this year from Delaware have completed their check. The remaining FCUs will be ready prior to filling operations are scheduled to begin next week. Herman began initial test runs with the IceTop Reverse Osmosis (RO) filter. Initial tests show that the filter is working properly and that glycol concentration in the product water is well below the required 10ppm required to fill IceTop tanks. The drill crew fabricated a valve assembly that will allow for a safer method of filling the IceTop transport tank from the bottom and for draining the hose when filling is complete. They also flushed the IceTop fill hoses so we will be assured of clean hoses. These clean hoses will be dedicated to IceTop in future seasons.

The surface cables are critical to IceTop operations! Without them, we cannot fill a single tank. Trunk cables were trenched-in from the ICL to several IceTop stations in preparation to be pulled into the ICL and communication and power cables were connected to the Surface Junction Boxes.