Field notes: ARTEMIS

ARTEMIS Nominal Mission Profile

Cartoon of a nominal ARTEMIS mission beneath the Ross Ice Shelf. (image: Peter Kimball)

We will launch and recover ARTEMIS through a 4′ (1.2 m) diameter drill hole in sea ice, just beyond the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. She will then transit 10 km away from the drill hole, and 10 km back, collecting scientific data and stopping to take water samples along the way. The cartoon above is taken from our Astrobiology Science Conference poster, and shows a nominal ARTEMIS mission. The length of time required for each mission will depend on water currents, but we expect them to last about 10 hours, and we hope to pull off about 15 of them by the end of the year.

The ice overhead means that ARTEMIS cannot simply surface and await rescue in the event of a problem. She must be able to return to the drill hole if anything goes wrong. This mission design places great importance on ARTEMIS’s navigation instruments and software (her ability to find her way back to the drill hole) and entails significant risk. However, this is exactly what an icy moon robot will have to do in order to get its data back to the surface for transmission to earth. Here on Earth, the mission design allows ARTEMIS to maximize her time under the ice collecting valuable data.

Again, it’s one thing to make a pretty picture of a nominal robotic field mission, but it’s quite another to actually pull it off. It’ll be several weeks of environment characterization, in-water testing, and debugging before we’re able to pull off a “nominal mission”.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

What Is ARTEMIS?

Mechanical rendering of the ARTEMIS robot. (image: Stone Aerospace)

ARTEMIS is a robot – a testbed for life-search technologies. We’re developing these technologies to search for life in the liquid oceans beneath the frozen crusts of icy moons in our solar system. The ocean beneath the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica is an excellent icy moon analog environment where we can deploy ARTEMIS to test life-search technologies and learn some things about our home planet while we’re at it.

ARTEMIS is designed and built by Stone Aerospace specifically to explore the environment beneath the Ross Ice Shelf. She has a range of 20 km, carries an on-board water sample collection system plus a broad suite of scientific sensors, and features the ability to hover precisely, bringing scientific equipment into contact with the ice ceiling overhead.

It’s one thing to cheerfully list off the designed capabilities of a robot. It’s quite another to actually build, deploy, and recover such a robot – especially in ice-covered antarctic waters. This blog will follow the field team as we head to McMurdo Station in Antarctica, send ARTEMIS beneath the ice for the first time, and work towards bringing back valuable scientific data from beneath the Ross Ice Shelf.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

ARTEMIS is Real!

ARTEMIS undergoes nighttime testing of her visual homing system with the illuminated docking bar. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Enough renderings and vector drawings! This blog needs the genuine article! Here are some photographs of ARTEMIS taken at various stages of testing in 2015. We’ll go over the anatomy of ARTEMIS in a future post…

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Conditions Throughout Our Field Season

Eight of us are headed to McMurdo Station (sans ARTEMIS) on August 26 (weather permitting) as part of ‘Winfly’ (Winter Flight), the first grouping of flights to go to McMurdo since winter began. Our Winfly crew will work to select the best site to establish our base camp on the sea ice, and to set up as much of our gear as possible before ARTEMIS and the Mainbody crew arrive in October.

The amount of daylight we see will change drastically during our time at McMurdo. When the Winfly crew arrives in late August, the length of day will be changing very quickly, but the sun will only actually be above the horizon from 10am to 4pm. By the end of September, the sun will still set each day, but only briefly, and it will never be completely dark. In late October, the sun will quickly dip below the horizon for the last time, leaving us in round-the-clock daylight for the rest of our time at McMurdo (we leave when the sea ice becomes unstable in early-mid December). The figure linked below illustrates how lighting conditions vary at McMurdo throughout the year.

Lighting conditions at McMurdo throughout the year. (image: Ethan Dicks)

The temperatures we’ll experience will vary quite a bit from August to December as well. The figure linked below shows NIWA data for Scott Base (a Kiwi base next-door to McMurdo) plotted by the folks at metservice.com (check out their blog!). Note that the mean daily Maximum temperature is -23.4C in August, and rises to -1.2C in December… but cold days can be very cold, and high winds can be extremely dangerous. We fully expect to lose multiple working days to extreme weather conditions, especially early in our season.

NIWA data plotted by metservice.com showing monthly temperature averages at Scott Base (next-door to McMurdo). (image: metservice.com)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

where Is ARTEMIS Going?

The ARTEMIS deployment area is just south of McMurdo Station, a U.S. Antarctic Program research station, roughly due south of New Zealand. (image: Peter Kimball)

We are deploying ARTEMIS beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, specifically in McMurdo Sound, just South of McMurdo Station, the U.S. Antarctic Program research station that makes our field work possible. ARTEMIS will follow 10 km paths under the ice shelf and back out to the launch and recovery drill hole. We will only be able to use one drill hole (and associated base camp location) this season, so we hope to send ARTEMIS on a radial pattern of missions, as indicated in the graphic above, again taken from our Astrobiology Science Conference poster.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Packed & Ready

Clothing I’m Bringing

Back in the day (until last year), the U.S. Antarctic Program issued participants everything they needed to survive and work in the Antarctic. That is no longer true. Fortunately, I still have a bunch of high-quality gear from the Australian Antarctic Division. Here’s what I’m packing:

• Warm Socks (4)
• Really Warm Socks (8)
• Nuclear Option Socks (4)
• Lightweight Synth. Thermals (1)
• Midweight Synth. Thermals (1)
• Heavyweight Wool Thermals (2)
• Windproof Fleece Vest
• Work Pants
• Balaclavas (2)
• Hats (2)
• Neck Gaiter
• Glove Liners (2)
• Wrist Warmers (for typing)
• Goggles
• Extra Sunglasses & Glasses
• NZ Plug Adapter
• Towel, Toiletries, and Contacts
• Shirts, Undies, Sweaters, etc.
• Hiking Boots
• Extra Duffel

Clothing I’ll Be Issued

USAP participants ARE still issued the really serious stuff. Here’s what I think I’ll be issued in Christchurch:

• Nuclear Option Giant Red Parka
• Quilted, Bibbed Work Overalls
• Various (?) Gloves
• “Bunny” Boots
• Goggles, gaiters, facemask, etc…

I’m sure it’s going to be hectic in Christchurch, but I’ll try to do a gear post sometime after it’s been issued.

Camera Gear

This is obviously a play-to-win situation, but mass and volume are limited. Here’s what I’m bringing:

• 70-200 mm f/1.8
• 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6
• 17-40 mm f/4
• Polarizer & ND Filter
• Camcorder
• GoPro & Mounting Trinkets
• Tripod (!) & Ballhead
• Cleaning Equipment
• Camera Gloves
• External Flash & Batteries
• Headlamp
• 1 TB HDD

Packed!

All this fits into one checked bag, one carry-on (all camera gear), and one backpack (also w/ my project laptop).

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Clothing Distribution Center

We made it to Christchurch, NZ! We went to bed last night planning to fly to McMurdo today, but weather has kept us in Christchurch for the time being. We did go to the USAP Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) to receive our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear (photos above). While there, we also had our computers checked for anti-virus compliance and received anti-virus (flu) shots ourselves. We checked into a new hotel and spent the rest of the day analyzing data from our last ARTEMIS lake test in TX.

The current plan is that we fly tomorrow, but the forecast indicates more bad weather ahead – if we can’t fly tomorrow, we may be stuck here until Saturday. Christchurch is nice, but we’re keen to get to it!

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Training Day in Christchurch

5:30 am phone calls informed us that we would not be flying out today. Sad day. Instead, we went back to the CDC to knock off a few required trainings. There will be many more before we’re allowed out on the sea ice, but we fought through the acronyms and made some good progress today. Above are some photos from today’s survival bag familiarization.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Ginger Beer

On the way home from Arthur’s Pass, we conducted a controlled head-to-head taste test, pitting Bundaberg Ginger Beer and Frank Ginger Beer against each other. Bundaberg is the unanimous winner.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

No Fly Tourism Day

As we feared, we woke up yesterday to the news that we wouldn’t be flying to McMurdo and we wouldn’t be given any training that day. So, we rented two cars and checked out the local area. One group went to Akaroa, a French town by the ocean on the peninsula south of Christchurch. They walked the town and went out on a small ship to see penguins & dolphins. Very cool.

Meanwhile, I went with Bill, John, and Chris up into the mountains. We had excellent weather and great light to experience the awesome landscapes in and around Arthur’s Pass National Park. We went for four short hikes, and the group was very tolerant of my “photographer’s pace”.

On The Way

Chris was a hero, volunteering to drive our group on this trip. Christchurch is super-high difficulty driving right now because of all the earthquake repair construction going on… plus Kiwis drive on the left. The drive was exceedingly beautiful well before we even got to the park entrance. Chris pulled over so I could get out and snap a few pictures:

Waterfall & Views of Avalanche Peak

We drove all the way to the summit of Arthur’s Pass, and then got out to hike the most enticing spots on our way back down. The first stop was a rocky road up to beautiful views of Avalanche Peak and a waterfall on our side of the valley. We were amazed by the scenery and also by the clarity of the air that day. Wow!

The Devil’s Punchbowl Waterfall

Our next stop on the way down was an even more majestic waterfall called The Devil’s Punchbowl.

Stream Cave

Just outside the national park, there’s a beautiful limestone cave with a stream running through it. Bill and John are way into caving, so this was a mandatory stop. In a previous year, Bill went all the way through this cave, and there are plans brewing to repeat that trip if we’re held in Christchurch too much longer…

Castle Station

Just downhill of Stream Cave lies Castle Station, named for the beautiful limestone formations that dot the area. The late afternoon light made this an especially wonderful stop.

… so no Ice Flight, but a pretty excellent day nonetheless.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Chrome Gnome

There are many great things about Christchurch. The Chrome Gnome is certainly one.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Walking Christchurch

My collection of flight rescheduling papers. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Our flight was cancelled again yesterday, so we took care of some more trainings and business around the hotel. Everyone’s fingers are crossed for our scheduled flight to McMurdo this evening. John and Josh have been moved onto a different flight for logistical reasons, so we’re also hoping that we all meet up with all our bags as soon as possible in McMurdo.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Nacreous Clouds!

Yesterday evening, Britney came into the office and excitedly asked “have you guys seen what’s going on outside?” Exiting the lab building, we were greeted by a spectacle that I’d heard about, and very much hoped to see during these early weeks: nacreous clouds. Also called polar stratospheric clouds, these clouds are very beautiful and very interesting. From their Wikipedia entry:

Polar stratospheric clouds or PSCs, also known as nacreous clouds (/ˈneɪkriː.əs/, from nacre, or mother of pearl, due to its iridescence), are clouds in the winter polar stratosphere at altitudes of 15,000–25,000 meters (49,000–82,000 ft). They are best observed during civil twilight when the sun is between 1 and 6 degrees below the horizon. They are implicated in the formation of ozone holes.

I had hoped we’d see these at some point before darkness leaves us altogether. I did not expect we’d see them six hours after getting here! Between the epic C-17 flight, our arrival on station, and seeing these clouds, we will remember yesterday for quite some time.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Flying To McMurdo

I am typing this from our lab space at McMurdo Station! The hours leading up to the flight were a sleepless saga of delays, but when we finally flew out at around 5:30 am, THE FLIGHT WAS GLORIOUS. We traveled on a C-17 flown by the US Air Force 109th Airlift Wing, Operation Deep Freeze – a very cool airplane.

We were seated along the sides of the aircraft, with massive pallets of cargo strap-netted down the center.

The aircraft crew were both professional and kind, even allowing us to spend some time individually in the cockpit. The cockpit view as we flew over the sea ice, glaciers, and mountains of Antarctica in morning light was epic.

Views out the troop door windows were excellent as well.

We arrived to a beautiful scene at the Pegasus Airfield, with calm winds, and a temperature just below zero Fahrenheit.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Pisten Bully Training

Our group climbs back into a Pisten Bully to resume training. Chris prepares to replace me as driver. We had stopped to look at the sea ice access road we’ll eventually be using. (photo Peter Kimball)

We had Pisten Bully training on Monday. “Pisten” translates from German as “slopes” – these beastly little tracked vehicles are commonly used for cat skiing & ski area maintenance. A diesel engine drives a hydraulic motor that actually drives the tracks. Top speed on a “PB” in ideal conditions is about 16 mph, although the speed limit is 5 mph on-station. We each drove a Pisten Bully as part of our training on Monday and unanimously concluded that they’re highly enjoyable to drive.

Our group is assigned two Pisten Bullies for accessing candidate field sites during winfly, so we’ll get to know these machines very well.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Unpacking Our Gear

John checks out our optical fiber termination gear. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Yesterday, we took delivery of our gear to our lab space in the Crary Lab building. Today, we’ve been checking basic system functions on the Sunfish robot and preparing for deployment. Our gear seems to have survived the shipping process very nicely, although Chris did have to re-crimp one power connector… not bad.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

The View From Our Lab

The view from our lab window. USAP field safety folks are out on the sea ice setting up huts for other science groups. Our field camp will be further away and off the left side of this image – as close as possible to the ice shelf. (photo: Peter Kimball)

I just wanted to share the view from our lab window. At this time of year, each day is basically an 8-hour sunrise, followed by an 8-hour sunset. These mountains are lit with beautiful pastel light all day, but the lighting angle changes as the sun swings around behind us. This picture was taken at about 11:30am. It was -25 F outside.

We walk to dinner at very nearly the same time each evening, so it’s easy to notice the lengthening days. True darkness is becoming more brief each night. At the same time, the C-17 landing was the last time I’ve felt direct sunlight (the station sits on the southern slope of Ross Island).

Meanwhile, we’ve been hard at work preparing the Sunfish vehicle to get wet and completing more required trainings (yesterday included Radio Communications, Waste Management, and GPS). We’re very excited for today’s training: Working On Sea Ice!

Reporting by Peter Kimball

While We Still Have Darkness

Vince’s Cross, sea ice lit by McMurdo Station, and faint aurora australis. Vince’s Cross is made of oak, and was erected by Scott’s first expedition in March 1902, in remembrance of the death of Seaman George T. Vince who slipped off of a cliff and drowned while trying to return to the ship during a blizzard. Vince was the first person to die in McMurdo Sound. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Today (Sunday) is a day off. So, we worked late after dinner last night, and then Justin and I headed out on foot to Discovery Hut. Our goal was to escape the lights of McMurdo station and photograph the antarctic night sky while we still have darkness. This mission was an unequivocal success. We were rewarded with very clear skies, milky way like I’ve never seen, and even some faint auroras.

It was -23 C while we were out. We fared well, but I did sustain a small injury: a cold burn on the tip of my nose from touching it to the LCD screen on the back of my camera after my breath had condensed there. The wind came up about an hour in. We lasted only another 10 minutes before we had to retreat to the station. Here are some more shots from the evening:

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Sea Ice Training and Site Reconnaissance

We went out on the sea ice for the first time yesterday. We went with Alasdair, a USAP sea ice expert, to learn about safety (especially vehicle safety) around sea ice cracks.

After learning about ice crack safety, we proceeded South across the sea ice to the edge of the McMurdo Ice Shelf and began looking at potential sites for our main field camp. We want to find a site on the sea ice that’s close to scientifically interesting sections of the ice shelf (there are many factors), and near a place that our vehicle tracking team can get up onto the shelf safely with minimal detour.

Our vehicles performed well on the sea ice despite the cold.

We learned over the radio that the air temperature out on the ice was -41 F! Fun fact: -40 C and -40 F are the same temperature.

We had a beautiful day out on the sea ice, including views like this one back toward the station.

A view of McMurdo Station with Mt. Erebus and Mt. Terror in the distant background. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Thwarted

We ballasted the Sunfish vehicle in a small tank in our lab yesterday. The tank is filled with water circulated into the lab from McMurdo sound, so the salinity (and vehicle buoyancy) should match what we’ll see in the field. This also means that the water temperature is around 31 F, and it is not pleasant to touch.

Some fellow researchers at McMurdo have a fish hut set up down on the sea ice where they collect invertebrate marine life through a drill hole. The hut protects the hole against refreezing and also shelters the work area around the hole. They offered that we could use the hut yesterday around 4 pm when they were finished for the day. Very nice! So, we packed up all our gear in the afternoon and planned to head out to the hut.

However, by the time we were leaving the station, things didn’t feel right. We were rushing, the wind was howling, and visibility was not good. The weather folks were in training all day, so we didn’t have a confident weather prediction. This did not feel like the right set of conditions for our first test of Sunfish under ice. So, at the edge of town, we made the smart call and turned back.

The hut is available to us again today. Currently, the temperature is -32 F. The wind is 17 mph, gusting to 32 mph. This time, we’ve got the whole day, and the forecast is for the wind to come down as the day goes on. We’ll pack up this morning and try again to get Sunfish under the sea ice.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Sunfish Under Ice!

Josh and Vickie clear ice from the drill hole in preparation to launch Sunfish. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Today was a great day. Sunfish completed her first ever dives under ice. We drove out on the sea ice in our Pisten Bullies to a fish hut loaned to us for the day by another science group. After setting up our computers and safety rigging, we went through our startup checklist and deployed Sunfish into the hole. The first test was to pull Sunfish right back out again. Once we were certain about our ability to recover Sunfish, we sent her back down the drill hole and drove her out under the ice…

The ice is about 2 m thick at this location, so I was surprised to see how much sunlight makes it through to the water. The drifting snow, our hut, and our vehicles all make shadow patterns on the ceiling overhead. In the water, we performed several tests of specific subsystems, and generated a list of things we’d like to improve or implement for our next test. Here are some screen-grabs from Sunfish’s live camera view during today’s glorious first ever dives under ice:

We arrived in the morning to find that the heater in the hut had broken. Normally, the heater is left on to keep the ice hole from refreezing. Without the heater working, the temperature in the hut was the same as outside: -30 F. However, some local seals had kept the hole open all night. Two seals continued to use the hole for breathing throughout our operations today. Protocol when seals show up in the hut is to stop operations and allow them to breathe. Depending on what they’re up to, their breathing can last 5 – 15 minutes. If they show up with a fish and set up shop to eat, it can take much longer before they leave and allow work to resume. Our visitors today only stayed for about 5 minutes at a time. It was really special to see these seals up close in their antarctic home.

The weather was a bit nasty when we left town this morning, but by the time we finished up at the fish hut in the afternoon, things had improved quite a bit. Some carpenters from town even came out and fixed the heater in the fish hut. This was the scene just before we packed up for the day:

Our Pisten Bullies sit beside our borrowed fish hut on sea ice in McMurdo Sound. (photo: Peter Kimball)

We drove happily back to town after our wonderful day at the fish hut. Driving the Pisten Bullies is super fun, and I got to drive one back to town this evening. Mt Erebus emerged from behind low clouds as we rolled toward town – a beautiful finale to a great day on the ice.

Mt Erebus emerges into view with Hut Point Peninsula and McMurdo Sound sea ice in the foreground. Small green flags mark a USAP sea ice route. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Aurora Australis

Yesterday was already unbelievably wonderful due to our Sunfish tests under ice. But it got even better… I got back to the dorm at about 11:30 pm (after blogging!), and Justin informed me that aurora were visible outside. I was super tired, but as I mentioned in my camera gear post, this is a play-to-win situation, so I grabbed my tripod from the dorm, went back to lab for my camera, and wandered around outside with my jaw hanging open until about 1am when the cold started getting to me. So, I’m a bit short on sleep today, but the display last night was amazing!

Aurora australis over Mt. Discovery and the Pegasus runway lights. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Aurora australis over the hills north of McMurdo Station. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Here are a few more shots from last night’s aurora display.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

The Size of Antarctica

Antarctica with the US overlaid for size comparison. (image: nasa.gov)

This is a very cool image from a NASA site. Fun fact: they way they’ve overlaid the US, McMurdo Station is very close to Austin, TX – Stone Aerospace Headquarters.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Meanwhile, in Austin…

Back at Stone Aerospace headquarters, the remaining members of the ARTEMIS team have been hard at work adding finishing touches and performing final testing with ARTEMIS in preparation for shipping her to Antarctica. We’ve been verifying newly added instrumentation, tuning control, and improving ARTEMIS’s autonomous navigational capabilities. For quick tests, we submerge ARTEMIS in Stone Aerospace’s NBF (Neutral Buoyancy Facility – basically a big tank of salt water), and for more in-depth tests, we bring her to Mansfield Dam, which provides us locally with two things we need: enough water depth to maneuver, and a large boat ramp we can use to move ARTEMIS from the trailer to the water.

ARTEMIS sits on her transportation cart in lab at Stone Aerospace headquarters. (photo: Evan Clark)

ARTEMIS shipped yesterday (woohoo!) and began her long journey to the ice. ARTEMIS will travel by ground to Port Hueneme, California, and from there she’ll catch a ride on an Air Force cargo plane to Antarctica, along with scientific equipment from other US Antarctic Program projects. Assuming the weather cooperates, ARTEMIS will arrive at McMurdo near the start of October – about the same time as the first wave of the MainBody team (Kristof, Evan, and Brian). The second wave (Mark, Keith), will join us near the end of October and relieve some members of the WinFly team.

ARTEMIS undergoes testing at the Stone Aerospace Neutral Buoyancy Facility in early August. (photo: Evan Clark)

Kristof maneuvers ARTEMIS out of the trailer and into the water in preparation for lake testing. Once ARTEMIS’s weight is held up by buoyant force, the arms on the transportation cart are swiveled away, and she can float free. (photo: Evan Clark)

The WinFly team has been working tirelessly to select a field site for ARTEMIS from several candidate sites on the sea ice near McMurdo Station, and make sure all the logistics are in place to receive the robot once she arrives. They have been scouting the field sites using the Sunfish AUV, as well as a small ROV donated by OpenROV for the expedition (thanks OpenROV!). They hope to gather data on local currents, formation of platelet ice and brash ice (nasty refreezing effects near the ice ceiling which could create features for ARTEMIS’s fiber optic tether to snag on), and ease of access to our scientific targets under the McMurdo Ice Shelf. Once a field site is selected, they will construct the Bot House (a heated mission control structure with a moon pool through which to deploy ARTEMIS), set up our camp on the ice, and prepare for ARTEMIS’s imminent arrival.

She’s on her way, cross your fingers for safe travel!

ARTEMIS performs a transect during lake testing at Mansfield Dam over Labor Day weekend. We found it easier to perform testing at night to avoid all the holiday boat traffic! (photo: Evan Clark)

Reporting by Evan Clark

Sunday Lab Tours

Justin drives Sunfish in the test tank as Bill, Britney, and I explain our robots and science mission to the Sunday Lab Tour group. (photo: Peter Kimball)

McMurdo Station is an amazing place. It exists to enable scientific research, but it only functions because of the hard work of the people here. Machinists, cooks, stewards, administrators, instrument technicians, doctors, helicopter crews, waste managers… there’s a whole city of people here doing various jobs. Each Sunday, the Crary Lab building is opened up to anyone in the McMurdo community who wants to come in and learn about the science that the station is enabling. We had a very satisfying experience sharing our work with folks yesterday – we had an interactive discussion, drove Sunfish around in the test tank (live demo – yikes!), and showed some video from our under-ice tests. We’re looking forward to more Sunday lab tours!

David, one of the Crary Lab Assistants, created this submersible at craft night to leave in the touch tank. When more science parties show up, this tank will contain specimens of the animals they’re studying. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

The Beginnings of Field Site Setup

Justin and Josh disconnect our outhouse from our Pisten Bully out at our candidate field site. (photo: Peter Kimball)

A few of us went our to our first-choice candidate field site today. We’ll need to do some exploring under the ice with Sunfish before we can call it our “for sure” field site. The plan today was to watch the drillers put in a 48″ access hole, position a fish hut over the hole, and then deploy Sunfish. It was quite cold again today, though, and the drill couldn’t be started. So instead, we accomplished a small chore and dragged our outhouse out to the site. Our expedition’s string of amazing natural phenomena continued today with a beautiful sun dog.

After dropping off the outhouse, we went south of our field site to check on the status of a crack in the ice we saw there during site selection. It’s the tiniest thing on the surface, but it’s a bit scary under the snow. The crack is still small enough to be crossed by our Pisten Bullies, but wouldn’t be crossable (at this location) by snow machines. We’ll have to keep an eye on this when we start doing surface tracking of ARTEMIS later in the season.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

More Aurora Australis!

Aurora australis over Discovery Hut and sea ice in McMurdo Sound. (photo: Peter Kimball)

We were smiled upon with ANOTHER aurora event this past Saturday night. These aurora were just as amazing as the ones we saw last Tuesday night. A group of us went out to Hut Point and found ourselves giggling and wowing aloud as the beautiful display transpired. I wondered if I should make ANOTHER aurora post… YES!… and I’ll do it again if we’re lucky enough to see another display!

Once again, it was fiercely cold – wind chill below -55 C, according to the NASA building sensors. Even in our full gear, we were only able to stay outside for about an hour before we had to head in. Just inside the dorm, I took this picture of Josh in the last moment before my cold camera lens fogged up completely:

Josh – even happier than he is cold after viewing the aurora australis. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Observation Hill

Our group hikes up Observation Hill towards Memorial Cross. (photo: Peter Kimball)

After we gave our lab tour this past Sunday, we hiked up Observation Hill at the south end of McMurdo Station. It was cold, but hiking in our full cold weather gear was a tricky thermal management situation. The snow will soon begin to melt from the dark volcanic rocks around McMurdo Station, and all of these views will look very different.

Sea ice in McMurdo Sound as seen from halfway up Observation Hill. (photo: Peter Kimball)

I spent some time at the top making use of the camera gear I schlepped up. Here are some views from the top:

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Hole Drilling at our Candidate Field Site

Great news! After a few days of severe weather and equipment problems, we were able to head out with the drillers and get an access hole drilled through the sea ice at our candidate field site. The drill rig is quite a site to see, with a 48″ auger at the business end, and a huge tracked Cat Challenger vehicle to tow the drill over the sea ice and move snow around at the site. Once we got to the site, it only took about half an hour for the drillers to create the access hole. Then, they used the Challenger to tow our fish hut over the hole, and berm snow around the sides of the fish hut to insulate the bottom opening.

We will be able to drop the qualifier, “candidate” if we can determine that the underside of the ice around the candidate site (especially at the nearby ice shelf transition) doesn’t present a hazard to vehicle operations. Sea ice forms in platelets on the underside of sea ice. The ice itself is cooled from above by the cold air coming off the continent. The seawater is much warmer, at about -1 C. The layer of water that touches the cold ice above freezes into platelets. Those platelets consolidate over time and thicken the sea ice. A layer of platelet ice thicker than the vehicle would present a freezing hazard. Consolidated platelet “spires” could also be hazardous.

Platelets are almost everywhere under the sea ice right now, but they are larger and more numerous at our candidate field site than at the fish hut we borrowed last Tuesday. When the drill was removed from the hole, it sucked a hole’s volume of seawater and platelets up onto the surface. The platelets are beautiful, but if we had our way, we’d probably choose to have fewer of them in the area.

The view back to McMurdo and Mt. Erebus from our site was spectacular as winds swept snow up the slopes of Hut Point Peninsula, and steam rose from the top of Mt. Erebus.

Winds sweep snow up the slopes of Hut Point Peninsula as we look back to McMurdo from the sea ice. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

First Sunfish Dive at our Candidate Field Site

We returned to our site on Wednesday night after our access hole was drilled that morning. One group worked for two hours to clear platelet ice from the access hole while another group loaded Sunfish and its support gear into a vehicle and brought it out to the site. The fish hut was cozy with a heater running and seven of us inside.

After doing some checkouts on the vehicle systems, we deployed it down through the drill hole. It was the middle of the night (we still have darkness for the time being), so we didn’t see the glowing blue ice ceiling. The camera view was completely black except for backscatter from the headlight, and an occasional view of the vehicle tether or the ice ceiling when we got very close. There’s still quite a bit to learn about the conditions at the field site, but we did use the opportunity to test a number of vehicle sensor systems, particularly those relating to the swift moving water currents present at the site. Once again, we left the test happy, but with a list of tests and improvements to work on for the next dive.

I set up a GoPro camera on Sunfish for this dive and came home with hundreds of images of headlight backscatter in dark dark water.

Fog forms in the Sunfish drill hole as cold air from below mixes with warm air in the hut. (photo: Sunfish/Peter Kimball)

Sunfish points down the drill hole. The headlight illuminates platelet ice on the walls of the hole. (photo: Sunfish/Peter Kimball)

The Sunfish headlight illuminates platelet ice accumulation near the drill hole. (photo: Sunfish/Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Checking Out Our Candidate Field Site

We had a great day today deploying Sunfish at our candidate field site. It was not a bright sunny day, but there was enough light coming through the ice for us to learn quite a bit from the imagery. The platelet ice accumulation is certainly significant, but so far, we haven’t seen anything too scary from a robot operations perspective. Here are some stills from a GoPro I attached to Sunfish for today’s dive.

We ran the vehicle battery all the way down exploring the area around our fish hut. We were just about to start some other experiments at the surface when the weather changed dramatically. We had been commenting all day about how nice and not-too-cold it was outside. Then, over the course of about 15 minutes, the wind came up to 60 mph, and visibility dropped to less than two car lengths. We packed up our gear and drove back to station in close formation, navigating our route over the sea ice by GPS.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Condition Fun

McMurdo Station uses three weather “conditions” to define weather-related travel restrictions. They are:

Weather Condition 3:
Unrestricted travel and activity are allowed.

• Winds less than 48 knots, and
• Visibility greater than or equal to ¼ mile, and
• Wind chill temperature warmer than -75°F.

Severe Weather Condition 2:
Restricted pedestrian traffic only between buildings is allowed. Vehicular travel is only allowed in radio equipped, enclosed vehicles, and check out with the Firehouse is required.

• Winds 48 to 55 knots sustained for one minute, or
• Visibility less than ¼ mile, but greater than or equal to 100 feet sustained for one minute, or
• Wind chill -75°F to -100°F sustained for one minute.

Severe Weather Condition 1:
Severe weather is in progress. All personnel must remain in buildings or the nearest shelter.

• Winds greater than 55 knots sustained for one minute, or
• Visibility less than 100 feet sustained for one minute, or
• Wind chill greater than -100°F sustained for one minute.

We’ve had Condition 1 a few times here so far. When Condition 1 struck McMurdo tonight, we were stranded in the galley for 45 minutes (not too bad). But, because people can end up stranded in all kinds of strange places when Condition 1 hits, there is a famous McMurdo band called “Condition Fun”. I think that’s an amazing name, and I’ve borrowed it for the title of this post. Check out their original song, C-17.

Here’s a photo I took of the steps into the galley after a Condition 1 storm.

The steps into building 155 are covered in ice and snow following a Condition 1 weather event. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Crary Instrument Lab

The resources here to support science are really impressive. We’ve felt very well supported by the people and equipment available. One mundane example for which I happen to have a video is the instrument lab in the Crary building. The other day, we were re-mounting a mapping sonar in the Sunfish robot, and I needed to tap some threads that had been corroded. Richard, who runs the Crary instrument lab, got me set up with a tap set, compressed air, isopropyl alcohol, pipe cleaners, and oil in no time. Tapping threads is a pretty generic task, but we’ve had all kinds of obscure needs met quickly and easily at McMurdo Station.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Installing a Water Current Profiler

John, Vickie, Chris, and I installed an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) in the drill hole at our candidate field site on Saturday. This instrument emits sound pulses into the water below at a known frequency and then measures the Doppler shift in returned echoes to determine the velocity (magnitude and direction) of the water currents below. We’re leaving the instrument running out at our candidate field site and traveling out to refuel the generator that’s powering it whenever weather allows. We’re hoping to gain an understanding of how tidal activity drives water currents there, and thus be able to plan our robots’ dives so that the robots aren’t swimming upstream any more than necessary.

Bill and Josh worked up a frame to secure the instrument in a known orientation in the fish hut. We installed the frame on Saturday after chipping out accumulated ice from the sides of the drill hole. We ran into a problem when the cordless drill batteries wouldn’t function in the cold and we Macgyvered a solution with a power supply, two multimeter leads, and a wine cork. Worked great!

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Checking On Our Water Current Profiler

The sonar face is free of ice accumulation. (photo: Peter Kimball / Justin Lawrence)

The safety rope attached to the sonar is not free of ice accumulation. (photo: Peter Kimball / Justin Lawrence)

Justin and I went out to the fish hut today to check on our water current profiling sonar. We refueled the generator, verified that the computer is still logging data, and lowered a camera & light into the hole to check for ice accumulation on the transducer face. With everything in good order, we headed back to town and refueled our Pisten Bully.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Installing The ARTEMIS Culvert & Measuring Fish Hut Orientation

We have committed to our field site! There’s nothing scary enough (from a robot deployment perspective) in what we’ve seen on the surface or under the ice to cause us to move elsewhere. Having committed, our first task was to install a large culvert in the ice. We’re hoping the culvert will help keep the ARTEMIS drill hole from refreezing. We were out at the site all day on Wednesday, working with USAP carpenters and drillers to accomplish the culvert installation.

The largest auger available on station is 48″ diameter. However, the culvert is 58″ outside diameter. So, the drillers drilled a ring of 24″ auger holes, and then used the 48″ auger to smash up the remaining ice in the center of the hole. We all worked with shovels to remove the large chunks of ice from the hole so that the culvert could be installed. For the finale, the drillers hoisted one end of the culvert into the air while those on the ground aligned it with the hole. The culvert was lowered into place using an iterative process to align it as vertically as possible.

With the culvert installed at the chosen position, the carpenters are now working to assemble our large bot house with its moon pool directly over the culvert. This will be our access, egress, and center of operations for ARTEMIS dives.

While at the site on Wednesday, John and I used GPS to determine the orientation of our fish hut with respect to the world. John carried a GPS receiver about 150 m from the fish hut, and we used radios to position him in alignment with the long side of the hut. We repeated this along opposite directions from the hut, and computed the bearing between the two positions. The long (~300 m) baseline between measurements makes the bearing computation more robust to position error than it would be with a shorter baseline, e.g. measuring positions of the corners of the hut.

We entered the GPS coordinates into our geospatial information software, and were surprised by the measured hut alignment: 90.0 degrees – within a tenth of a degree of due East-West. It’s just a coincidence, but it’s fun. We don’t really care what the alignment is, just as long as we know it, so that we can interpret the water current velocity directions that we’re measuring in the hut.

John stands in alignment with the long side of the fish hut in order to collect a GPS measurement used to determine the fish hut orientation with respect to North. (photo: Peter Kimball)

As usual, there were awesome things happening in the natural world around us. Toward the end of the afternoon, some small lenticular clouds were forming around Mt. Erebus. I will keep an eye out for more of these formations as the season progresses!

Lenticular clouds form above Mt. Erebus. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Recreation Time… and Bill Ups The Ante

Most of the people at McMurdo are here for several months at a time. They (we) work here, but also live here. As such, there are some recreational options around the station to help people relax and maintain morale. Some of us have taken a particular liking to the band room.

The band room is a happy place. It’s very well stocked with guitars, keyboards, drums, amplifiers, microphones, a P.A., and all kinds of miscellaneous music making implements. The walls are adorned with photos and posters of great McMurdo Bands past and present.

A few days after our third trip to the band room, Bill announced to us at lunch that he’d booked us to play live at the big end-of-winfly Capenters’ Shop party. This is a legendary annual party, attended by roughly the entire station.

Bill’s announcement was alarming because we are not particularly good at making music. Now, two and half weeks later, the party is tomorrow! The impending “gig” has galvanized us, and we’ve spent a few more evenings in the band room putting together a short set of songs. Last night was our final band practice before the big day. Tomorrow is going to be a very good time.

Bill, Chris, John, Justin and I belting out one of our set songs at our final “band practice” before we play at the Carpenters’ Shop Party this weekend. (photo: Josh Moor)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Carpenter Heroes

Justin and I went out to our field site on Saturday to refuel the generator powering our water current profiler. Conditions were rather nasty out. When we arrived at the site, we were seriously impressed by the progress the USAP carpenters had made in assembling the bot house on top of the ARTEMIS culvert.

We refueled the generator, snapped a few photos, and jumped back into our warm Pisten Bully while these heroes continued building. “Another day at the office,” they said cheefully.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Current Monitor Recovered

John and I headed out to our field site on Sunday to remove the water current profiler from the drill hole. The drill hole is closing faster and faster, and we were concerned that bad weather could keep us away long enough for the instrument to become frozen in. The timing worked out well because we’ve now got a substantial current data set, but we’re also anxious to get the current profiler reinstalled into Sunfish (where it is a critical navigation instrument) and resume Sunfish operations at the site.

Conditions were beautiful on Sunday. John and I saw the excellent progress the carpenters had made on the bot house in nasty weather on Saturday. We chipped a significant amount of ice from the hole, recovered the instrument, and headed back to station. The Mechanical Equipment Center has outfitted us with a diesel-powered heated glycol pump, called a hotsy, to help us keep the hole from freezing in. Britney, Justin, and Josh used it to melt back about 8″ of radial refreeze on Monday, making the hole ready for Sunfish operations this week.

Back on station, I’ve plotted the water current data we collected over a tidal model. There’s quite a bit to say about the plot (below), but the most important thing is that low current velocity at our site is correlated in time with rising tidal amplitude. Tidal amplitude is predictable, so we should be able to plan our robot dives at low-current times of day, minimizing the amount of energy the robot has to spend swimming upstream.

The water current information we collected shows that current velocity at our site is correlated in time with tidal amplitude, and that the direction of high-velocity current is fairly consistent. These are valuable pieces of information as we plan robotic dives. (figure: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Under The Shelf

A snow drift greets us inside the fish hut as we arrive. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Yesterday was a great day out at the fish hut, but it did not begin exactly as we’d planned. I headed out with Britney, Chris, and Justin to deploy Sunfish. We arrived at the hut to find it filled with snow. One of our fish hut doors doesn’t close quite right, and the weather reached Condition 1 the night before. It only took a few minutes to shovel the snow out of the hut.

The real pandemonium began just after we deployed Sunfish. As Sunfish descended through the hole, Justin and Britney said “wow, that’s a lot of platelet ice!” Sunfish had destabilized a large volume of platelet ice around the bottom of the hole that then floated up into the drill hole. We put Sunfish in station-keeping mode and worked to remove platelet ice from the hole for about half an hour. Bucket after bucket and net after net, we added to the massive “platelet glacier” outside one of the hut doors until the ice pack was loose enough to run the tether freely. Only then could we actually begin our mission. Even more ice had to be removed before we could recover the vehicle later.

This was the first time we’d run the vehicle since taking out its Doppler sonar for current profiling almost two weeks ago. In that time, Chris made some improvements to the vehicle navigation software and pilot interface, we surveyed the alignment of the fish hut, and we used the Doppler current profiler and tide model to plan operation times with low current velocity. All these things came together yesterday to yield our best Sunfish mission yet.

Our timing with respect to the water current was excellent – we experienced only minimal control disturbances, even with a record 250 m of optical fiber and high-strength line paid out in the water behind the vehicle. We traveled 200 m from the drill hole, and got under the Ross Ice Shelf for the first time. There, we observed a 20 – 30 degree slope in the ice ceiling overhead, down to a water depth of about 13 m. We also found a high concentration of ~25 cm fish under the sea ice just outside the shelf. Finally, at the end of the mission, the improved navigation software put us directly beneath the drill hole for an efficient recovery.

Here’s an excerpt of the live feed (with Chris’s updated pilot information overlay) from Sunfish, taken just short of the shelf edge, where the fish density was highest:

And, for our friends in the field with limited bandwidth, here’s a screenshot:

Pilot’s view screenshot as Sunfish approaches the edge of the McMurdo Ice Shelf, near the SIMPLE field site.

The only bad news from the day was that my GoPro (attached to Sunfish) stopped recording about 7 minutes into the dive, and somewhat more seriously, that the platelet ice accumulation beneath our field camp has stacked up to about 6.8 m water depth, enough to completely “bury” the ARTEMIS culvert we installed with the drillers and carpenters a little over a week ago.

By the end of the day, the weather was beautiful and Mt. Erebus was looking spectacular. We heard on the radio that the C-17 was approaching just as we were packing up to head back into town. With each incoming flight, the station population swells. Over winter, the population is around 150. During Winfly (when we arrived), the population is around ~200 – 300. Population peaks at ~1200 – 1300 at the beginning of the summer season. Many groups then depart to field camps and to Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, leaving the McMurdo population to stabilize at about 800 for the majority of summer.

The next two flights will bring fresh vegetables, ARTEMIS, and three more of our field team members!

Mt. Erebus looks excellent in the evening light. (photo: Peter Kimball)

The C-17 passes close to our field site on landing approach. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Rocking The Carp Shop Party

Front row view of The McMurdo Sound rocking live in our first ever gig at the end-of-winfly Carp Shop Party. (photos: Britney Schmidt)

Last Saturday, we played our first ever live gig at the end-of-winfly Carp Shop Party. John came up with our band name: The McMurdo Sound. Geographically, the McMurdo Sound is the region of water separating Ross Island from the Antarctic continent to the west. For a station rock band, the double meaning is fantastic, and were thrilled to confirm with a veteran music legend here that the name has never been used before.

Left-to-right in the photos above, the McMurdo Sound consists of: John – Bass Guitar; Bill – Lead Guitar; Justin – Drums; Peter – Rhythm Guitar & Lead Vocals – Chris: Keyboard & Vocals.

Our set list for the Carp Shop Party was:

1. Stray Cat Strut
2. You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive
3. White Wedding
4. Comfortably Numb
5. House of the Rising Sun*
6. Tribute

*John and I completely switch roles for House of the Rising Sun, and John sounds excellent on the vocals.

History is determined by those who write it, so I’ll report here that we were totally awesome and that the crowd loved us at the Carp Shop Party. We definitely had an amazing time, and we’re grateful to the Carpenters for letting us play along with some really impressive bands at the party.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Thanks OpenROV!

Our friends at OpenROV have kindly lent us two OpenROVs for use during our expedition. What is an OpenROV you ask? OpenROV is an open-source, affordable, remotely operated underwater robot aimed at making underwater exploration accessible to everyone, as well as a vibrant DIY community dedicated to the collaborative development of this platform and inspiring people with all backgrounds to get their feet wet and explore.

OpenROVs are built by researchers, students, schools, and backyard tinkerers to uncover the mysteries of our watery world (photo: OpenROV).

OpenROV’s mission is to bring the magic of underwater discovery to everyone, not only research or industry groups with access to expensive ROVs or AUVs, and to encourage citizen science and democratize underwater exploration. With two cutting edge AUVs at our disposal and the logistical backing of the United States Antarctic Program, we obviously have a little more underwater exploration firepower than the average OpenROVer, but that does not mean the OpenROVs will not be extremely useful to us. We plan to use them as low-cost “expendable” observation platforms to scout out situations where we are not yet ready to risk sending in a diver or SUNFISH. For example, if ARTEMIS gets stuck under the ice and we are having difficulty recovering her, we can send an OpenROV to perform initial reconnaissance of the situation. We also hope to use the OpenROVs to provide better situational awareness of critical operations near the borehole, as well as capture sweet footage of the other robots working under ice.

OpenROV and ARTEMIS pose together at Stone Aerospace HQ. (photo: Evan Clark)

Bill rocks a red OpenROV beanie. (photo: Evan Clark)

Before leaving for Antarctica, I had a chance to take one of the OpenROVs for a quick dive / systems checkout at a local pond.

Reporting by Evan Clark

More Christchurch Waiting

OK, since my colleagues are slacking on the job and neglecting to post updates, I’m just going to have to jump in here. Who’s this crazy guy, you may ask? Read my blurb over there ➘
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Evan, Brian, and I arrived safe and sound in Christchurch last Wednesday. The next day, we got our Extreme Weather Clothing issue and saw the C-17 ready to take us to McMurdo along with ARTEMIS herself.

Kristof in front of the C-17 loaded with ARTEMIS, waiting for the weather to clear. (photo: Evan Clark)

We were supposed to fly out on Friday. Even though the first Mainbody flights earlier in the week had gotten through without much delay, at 4:45 am on Friday we got the call that our flight had been delayed 24 hours due to weather in McMurdo. And the same call every day since. If we get delayed again tomorrow, we’ll have beaten Peter & Company’s delay count—and that was much deeper in the winter. Naturally, every day of delay here means that weather at McMurdo is preventing progress on the installation of our field camp and bothouse.
But that is the nature of work in Antarctica. We’re filling the time usefully. Evan and I are working on robot code here (though we can’t test it), Brian has worked out the antenna geometries he wants to try for our radio communications system (thought he can’t build it), and in McMurdo Peter and Chris are making code improvements and analyzing data from SUNFISH, and everyone else is preparing to hit the ground running once the four of us get there.

Of course, while here, we also can’t miss taking in the sights of picturesque—if somewhat rubble-filled—Christchurch.

Ah! the banks of Christchurch’s River Avon in spring. (photo: Kristof Richmond)

Alas, much has changed since I was here seven years ago.

But it’s inspiring to see how Christchurch has picked itself up, dusted itself off, and marches on, embracing the changes with it’s eyes on a brighter future.

A new shopping district south of the city center put together out of shipping containers—very useful in a pinch. (photo: Kristof Richmond)

Reporting by Kristof Richmond

ARTEMIS and Team Arrive

Britney greets Evan, Kristof, and Brian – fresh off the C-17 at the Pegasus White Ice Runway. (photo: Peter Kimball)

Yesterday was a big day for our project. The C-17 was able to make it through from Christchurch, bringing ARTEMIS as well as three more of our team. Justin, Britney, and I met Evan, Kristof, and Brian at the Pegasus White Ice Runway. We also stuck around to watch the ARTEMIS crate be unloaded (very exciting!), and the C-17 load up and take off back to New Zealand (very cool!).

The folks on station have been very good to our project. The cargo crews have been handling ARTEMIS with great care, and the South Pole Overland Traverse team have cleared a space in their shop where ARTEMIS is currently nice and warm while we work through weather delays affecting our bot house construction.

Reporting by Peter Kimball

Another Sunfish Dive From The Fish Hut

We all headed out onto the sea ice yesterday morning. Chris, Josh, Justin and I took Sunfish out to the fish hut while the others got in some work with our snowmobiles (now available to us as nicer weather and more vehicle maintenance support are available). Britney, Chris, Justin, and I stayed out at the fish hut and dove Sunfish to test out some new software that Chris and I have been working on.

The dive was very productive from a software standpoint, but we were very excited to be greeted by some new visitors to our drill hole: Pagothenia borchgrevinki. Some of our biologist friends here told us about these fish when we first saw them in large numbers beneath the shelf edge. It was very cool to see these ghostly fish up close in our drill hole.

Some more fun pictures from the day include a status update on the bot house construction (ongoing next to our fish hut) and some shots of Chris and me operating Sunfish in the fish hut

Bot house construction progress has been halted for a few days due to high winds on the sea ice. The next step will be to put the fabric insulation and coverings on. (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

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

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

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

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