Coming Home ????

Well, it's New Year's Eve here on the Ice, and I know when I'm leaving, but I don't know when I'm coming home. I am scheduled for a flight out of Antarctica, back to New Zealand on Jan 2. The flight will be on a C-130 this time, so it will be much longer (8 hours vs 5 hours) and much more uncomfortable, but oh well, at least I'm leaving. That will put me in Christchurch on Friday evening NZ time, but I do not know when I will be leaving to come back to the States. The word from the travel office is that there are no available flights out of Christchurch until Jan 6, but I will have to wait until I get there to find out for sure. That would put me in New Zealand for 4 days. Before coming to Antarctica, if someone would have offered me a 4 day all expenses paid trip to New Zealand, I would have been more than happy to take it - but now I just really want to get home. Not sure what I will do there with all of the free time, but I have talked to some Kiwis (New Zealanders) here in Antarctica and they gave me some ideas.

Tonight for New Year's Eve, there is a big music festival called Ice Stock. They have a stage set up in town, and there will be live music all the usual New Year's Eve stuff. There are several other parties in town as well, so I probably won't be bored. Tomorrow I have to finish packing all of my stuff. I have what they call "bag drag" at 8:00 tomorrow night. This is when you take all of your luggage to be checked in and weighed and you confirm your flight for the next day. They have had to cancel several flights in the last few days for weather, so hopefully my flight won't get cancelled. I can't wait to get to New Zealand and be warm and see vegetation, but most of all I can't wait for it to be dark at night. I will let everyone know if I get any updates on my travel plans, but probably won't know anything else for a couple of more days.

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S!!!

Last one down...

We finally launched the final balloon. The weather ended up being pretty good for the launch. The winds ended up being calm at the launch time and the temperature today actually made it up to a balmy 42 degrees. Now I can come home, and hopefully I can get a flight out of Antarctica on December 30. If that flight is full, then the next available option would be January 2. Either one of those flights would put me back in the States after New Year's unfortunately, but at least I am coming home soon. Below are a couple of pictures of today's launch of the ULDB balloon. This balloon is a little different than the other, so there is a second balloon called a tow balloon that is inflated to help support the weight of the hardware attached to the main balloon during inflation. The tow balloon is released prior to launch. I will keep everyone posted on my travel arrangements as soon as I know.
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Merry Christmas...

Merry Christmas to everyone! Yesterday was actually Christmas here, and it was actually a pretty good day. Christmas Eve, there was a town Christmas party, and Christmas day they had a big special Christmas dinner. The dinner was actually extremely good - we had prime rib, crab legs, roasted duck and tons of very good deserts. Also, there was midnight mass at the Chapel - this mass is unique, not only because it is one of the first midnight Christmas Masses in the world, but it is the only midnight Christmas Mass in the world to be held in the daylight. Of course, we had to work Christmas morning, but after work I was able to ride around on our snow mobiles for a while (very fun!) and when I got back to town, I went for a hike and watched some football. All in all, it was a pretty good day, but I definitely missed being with family - it just didn't really seem like Christmas.
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As far as work goes, it looks like the weather will start to improve somewhat by tomorrow, and we might have a shot at launching tomorrow evening or Sunday. It doesn't really look all that promising at this time, but it is definitely the best weather we will have seen since we launched ANITA 5 days ago.

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Here are a couple of new pictures. The first one is a picture of me and Henry Cathey (one of our NASA engineers) at the Christmas party on Christmas Eve. The second is a picture of some very cool clouds over Ross Island yesterday. Again, I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas - hope to be home soon.
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Balloon Pictures...

After the ANITA payload was launched yesterday and got up to its float altitude of 120,000 feet, the balloon passed almost directly back over the McMurdo area. The scientist in charge of the ANITA payload has a pretty high powered telescope, and one of the guys was able to capture some pretty amazing pictures of the balloon through the telescope. You can really see how big the balloons are when they are fully inflated. This balloon is nearly 30 million cubic feet in volume. The largest balloons we fly on a regular basis are nearly 40 million cubic feet, a third bigger than this one.
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The first picture is of the balloon at about 110,000 feet, just before it is fully expanded. The second is at the maximum height of 120,000 feet. On both, you can clearly see the payload hanging from the bottom. Just below the bottom of the balloon, you can see the orange parachute. For a size comparison, the payload is about 27 feet tall, and the parachute is 65 long. Everyone was pretty excited when they saw these pictures, as they are some of the most detailed taken of a balloon at its float altitude.

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Two Down, One to Go...

We launch the ANITA payload today in nearly perfect weather. Everything went off without a hitch after yesterday's glitches. Some of the electronics guys worked a very long and hard day to get everything working for today. Now with just one more flight to launch, hopefully the end of my Antarctic trip is coming soon. Unfortunately, the weather still looks like it will take a turn for the worse tomorrow, and it will probably be several days before we get another launch attempt. Here is a video and a couple of pictures from the launch today.

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If at First You Don't Succeed....

Well, so much for getting 2 payloads off the ground in 2 days. We tried really hard, and everyone really worked their tails off, but it just wasn't meant to be. The weather held up pretty good, but in the end, it was some electronics issues that prevented us from launching. Hopefully those issues can be resolved tonight, and we will show for another launch attempt tomorrow at 11am.

One Down, Two to Go....

We FINALLY launched our first balloon today - the CREAM payload was launched at about 11am Antarctic time on Friday. It feels really good to get the first one in the air. It was a very good launch, and the winds behaved themselves pretty well. Amazingly enough, it looks like we are going to try and launch the ANITA payload tomorrow - and the weather actually looks somewhat promising. They have never launched 2 payloads in back-to-back days down here, and it is going to take an incredible amount of work by a lot of people to get things ready for another launch attempt tomorrow. Everyone keep your fingers crossed! Below are a few pictures of today's launch.

The CREAM payload hanging from the launch vehicle prior to launch - Mt Erebus in the background.

The entire flight train with the balloon being inflated.

Balloon just prior to launch

The balloon rising just after being released.

The payload being released from the launch vehicle.