Stone Aerospace

Extra Time

The team watches live camera views and data from ARTEMIS during a dive beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf. (photo: Peter Kimball)

My scheduled time in the field has come to an end. However, high winds over the past several days have prevented incoming and outgoing C-17 flights, delaying my departure and allowing me a bonus ARTEMIS dive. I made an effort to get a few more photos of the bot house scene during that dive.

Josh, Vickie, Bill, and I go through the lifting checklist at the beginning of an ARTEMIS dive. (photo: Peter Kimball)

I used some of my bonus time in Antarctica to implement live plotting of ARTEMIS’s estimated position and heading in Google Earth. Mark set it up to be accessible to any computer on the bot house network. A wall projection of the display improves the team’s situational awareness while ARTEMIS moves through various mission stages.

Winds out on the sea ice have been fierce this week. The view back to McMurdo is often obscured, and we haven’t glimpsed Mt. Erebus in days. Huge snow drifts are piling up all around our camp structures, and the vigorous flapping of the bot house constantly accompanies the sounds of our operations.

High winds whip up snow and degrade visibility out on the sea ice. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Serious Science

The SIMPLE team with ARTEMIS in the bot house: Bill, Kristof, Dave, Justin, Chris, Britney, ARTEMIS, Josh, Keith, Brian, Peter, Peter, Evan, Vickie, Luke, and Mark. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Yesterday began with a group photo in the bot house. I’ll have to superimpose John to get the entire field team, but this photo includes the entire group currently at McMurdo.

We are getting more and more capable with ARTEMIS, and we’re starting to do some serious science. Yesterday’s dive featured a sampling transect in which ARTEMIS collected water samples and in-situ data at 7 stations distributed over 1.5 km spanning the ice shelf transition. The 3 km round-trip distance is a new record for ARTEMIS, and the science data set is the richest we’ve gathered yet. Brian was able to localize ARTEMIS with strong signal at all stations – through shelf and sea ice. The dive ended with a huge milestone for the programming team as ARTEMIS performed the first autonomous visual docking to the lighted docking bar under ice.

Evan, author of the dock detection software, is at a high stoke level after the first autonomous visual docking demonstration under ice. (photo: Peter Kimball)

After the robot was safely docked, we pulled off another big first by extending the ARTEMIS science tower. Moving parts can be trouble, but the test went very well. Bill dove to observe the actuation test, and I ran over to the dive hut to snap a few pictures as he came back to the surface:

As always, Antarctica was looking good from SIMPLE camp.

The late evening sun glints off of the Royal Society Range of the Transantarctic Mountains. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Intensity In Tent City

SIMPLE Camp in mid-season form. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Progress is happening at a terrific rate in SIMPLE camp. We’ve been working very long days advancing our science and engineering goals. Other than a few ours of planning discussions, we’ve taken today off, with most folks opting to sleep for many hours, as we had ARTEMIS in the water until 4 am last night.

The endless sunshine and super-long work hours are distorting our senses of time, but we remain ever conscious of the impending end of our field season. Happily, on our past few dives, we’ve achieved a number of exciting in-water milestones:

• Spooled optical data fiber from the 15km spool on ARTEMIS, and up through a depressor hanging beneath the bot house.
• Created a sonar map of the multi-year sea ice and ice shelf transitions near camp.
• Demonstrated our most basic loss-of-communications autonomous recovery behavior.
• Collected water samples under sea ice and returned them to the bot house.

​Here are some photos from those dives:

Justin and Brian track ARTEMIS beneath the sea ice about 500 m from camp. (photo: Peter Kimball)

ARTEMIS is hauled up through the culvert on the docking bar. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

A Pleasant Work Environment

One of my favorite break activities is to step outside the bot house and snap pictures of whatever beauty is being offered up by the Antarctic environment at various times of day. It’s still quite cold, and the wind is often vicious, but this place is easy on the eyes. Our camp is surrounded on all sides by amazing scenes.

The Royal Society Range West of SIMPLE camp. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Mt. Erebus, Hut Point Peninsula, McMurdo Station, and Mt. Terror to the Northeast of SIMPLE camp. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Animals

Yesterday was a huge day for wildlife sightings. Those who stayed overnight at camp were surprised to find that a Weddell Seal had wandered into camp the night before. The seal was bloodied a bit from fighting (this is common), and rested near our camp for about a day and a half before moving on this evening. Evan, Justin, Vickie, and Brian followed the seal’s trail yesterday morning hoping to find the open crack it had come from, but gave up after a half-mile journey in order to start work for the day.

Keith and I arrived at camp by snowmobile later in the morning and enjoyed the chance to snap a few photos ourselves. It’s important (and required by the Antarctic Treaty!) to keep enough distance not to disturb these animals, so I was happy to have a big lens with me.

Heading back to McMurdo after a long day at camp, we encountered a single Adélie Penguin crossing the “road.” This was an unlikely sighting so far from open water, and the first penguin ever seen by several members of our team. We spent a few minutes taking pictures, gave a wide berth, and headed home delighted.

Reporting by Peter Kimball