ARTEMIS

We Have Bot House!

Yesterday, Vickie, Josh, and I went out to our field site to help out getting the tarp on the bot house skeleton that has been waiting for weeks to be covered.

The weather was clear and calm, if cold, and we had some excellent views of the surroundings.

McMurdo Station nestled amongst the hills of the Hut Point Peninsula, with Mts. Erebus and Terror filling out the background. (photo: Vickie Siegel)

The polar fata morgana: instead of a warm layer of air on the ground bending light from the sky up to look like water, a cold layer of air on the ground bends light down to make distant slopes look stretched. (photo: Vickie Siegel)

As if to put and exclamation point on our excellent day, the C-17 came in for a landing just as we finished guying out the completed tent.

Bot house with C-17 on approach to Pegasus runway. (photo: Kristof Richmond)

Today, interior work continued, and heaters and electrical outlets were installed. Josh, Justin, Peter, and I headed out to unpack components of the Launch And Recovery System (LARS)—a rolling frame with winches that will lift ARTEMIS and rotate it vertically to fit down the bore hole, and reverse the operation to bring it back out.

Reporting by Kristof Richmond

Spreading the Word

Construction of the ARTEMIS bot house continues to be stalled by weather. It’s frustrating, but the silver lining has been a series of opportunities to share ARTEMIS with the McMurdo Station population before it’s moved out of town to our field site. We’ve had show-and-tell events yesterday and today. Both events were attended well beyond our expectations by administrators, galley staff, shuttle drivers, equipment techs, other science groups… you name it! We were really happy to meet so many different folks from around the station and to share ARTEMIS with them before it disappears to our field camp. We encouraged our visitors to climb up on the ARTEMIS crate, touch the robot, take pictures, and ask questions. I wedged myself into the space in front of the vehicle nose and had a fantastic time with visitors for over two hours. Britney, Kristof, Luke, Evan, and Bill were all around the room doing the same.

In related news, Vickie kicked off the season’s series of Sunday Science Lectures yesterday. Her talk, Ice and Rocks and Robots, oh My! The Yellow-Brick Road to Europa, was very well attended and very well received. There’s no auditorium on station, so these sorts of things happen in the dining hall. Our group will be giving two more talks this season – one about the SIMPLE science mission, and one about the ARTEMIS robot specifically.

Vickie gives a well-attended Sunday Science Lecture in the McMurdo dining hall about robotics projects at Stone Aerospace related to the search for extraterrestrial life. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Bot house thwarted

This morning, John, Josh, and I went out to the field site to help the carps (construction folk for those of you who haven’t been following along) finish setting up the bot house. The weather has been poor again for the last few days, preventing any progress on construction at the field site, but it seemed there was a clearing this morning as we toodled out in the Pisten Bully.

Beautiful sunny, calm day on our way to the bot house. (photo: Kristof Richmond)

But Antarctica decided to be Antarctica, and about 1/2 mile before we got to the field site, we ran into a band of wind and blowing snow that engulfed the Pisten Bully and the site. The carps we there, valiantly shoveling snow and organizing materials, but there was no was we’d be able to pull the tarps forming the bot house shell over the skeleton in this weather. We all decided to wait it out, as there was some hope of the weather lifting.

Visibility was reduced at the field site due to 20-30 knot winds blowing the snow on the ground (though there was still blue sky above). (photo: Kristof Richmond)

We waited for almost two hours, but the wind was just getting stronger and stronger, so we called it a day and headed back to town.

Almost as if to mock us, there was still a transition from windy to calm at almost the exact same spot on the road as on the way out, and the flags on the poles marking the way were limp or lightly flapping most of the way back. Ah, life in the Antarctic.

Reporting by Kristof Richmond

ARTEMIS

Vickie, John, Kristof, Chris, and Bill inspect ARTEMIS. (photo: Peter Kimball)

We opened up the ARTEMIS crate today and and performed a visual inspection of the robot. All in all, ARTEMIS seems to have traveled very well (thanks to all the cargo folks here and in the US!). We learned about a few issues that we’ll need to address before ARTEMIS goes in the water, and we also got a feel for what things we might be able to access for testing while ARTEMIS is in its temporary home in the SPOT shop. Speaking of SPOT, we owe that team enormous thanks for letting us store and access ARTEMIS in their shop until the bot house is completed at our field site – they have been very gracious to us.

Bill, John, and Kristof consider options for accessing ARTEMIS sensors for pre-dive testing. (photo: Peter Kimball)

John looks for anything amiss on the underside of ARTEMIS. (photo: Peter Kimball)

ARTEMIS sits warm and dry in the SPOT shop until the bot house is constructed at our field site. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

With Each Arriving Flight…

Fresh veggies from yesterday’s flight! (photo: Peter Kimball)

As the station population grows, some of the over-winterers and winfly folks grumble about crowding in the cafeteria and new demands on time and resources. However, there was also great joy yesterday when the most recent flights’ fresh veggies hit the serving line.

The number and variety of recreational opportunities are also growing with the station population. I’ve been enjoying pickup volleyball and soccer in the “large gym” on a few evenings the past two weeks. Here are a few random timer shots I took at volleyball this week:

Reporting by Peter Kimball