{"id":777,"date":"2017-11-01T01:46:32","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T01:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/?p=777"},"modified":"2017-11-03T00:39:58","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T00:39:58","slug":"setting-up-our-work-tent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/?p=777","title":{"rendered":"Setting up our work tent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past couple of days we have been getting our work tent at Willy Field ready.<\/p>\n

Our work space is a RAC-tent. And you can read about them here: http:\/\/www.ractent.com\/.<\/a>\u00a0 But, they are basically modular tents made for scientific work in polar environments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Rac-tent for ROSETTA-Ice project at Williams Airfield<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It sits at the edge of the airfield apron, and has doors at either end. Ours has two main areas: the front area where we will process our flight data and do other work, and the back area for our flight instruments and extra gear. The back doors are big double doors to easily load and unload our instruments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The first task was just to get all the cargo that was shipped down here into the tent. Once it arrived from the plane (the same C-17 we were on), it was held in the Cargo area. Some equipment is temperature sensitive, so certain cargo is marked “DO NOT FREEZE”, and held in appropriate areas until it was ready to be moved to our tent (and our tent was ready for it). Once we had electricity and heat, we were ready to move in.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The next step was to unpack everything and set up our computers\u00a0and instruments and make sure everything was working.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Computer network has been set up and is being tested by Isabel and Alec.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Chris and Grant working on Gravimeter racks in back room.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The tents are nice and cozy. We have two stoves that warm the place (one in each section). The air is really dry down here, so we put a pot of water on top of the stoves so that when it heats up, and simmers, it adds moisture to the air. We just add snow when the water gets low.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Heating stove with water pot on top used to add moisture to air.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And we also have a tea and coffee area, along with water and snacks. We will be spending ~11 hrs here when we are on shift, so we need to be a bit self-contained. There is a small galley at the airfield where we can get food, so we are not totally isolated out here (but it is a bit of a walk away in sometimes bitterly cold conditions). We also have to be prepared to be stuck in the tent in case the weather deteriorates suddenly, so we have sleeping kits and always have our extreme cold weather gear with us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Our rac-tent “kitchen” area.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, we are close to being ready to fly!\u00a0 We are installing the icepod on the LC-130 today and finding any last minute problems and working on our procedures.\u00a0 We might fly our check flight tonight or tomorrow.\u00a0 The check flight will be a short flight where we check that all the instruments are working correctly.\u00a0 After that, we fly our grid pattern as weather and plane availability permits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past couple of days we have been getting our work tent at Willy Field ready. Our work space is a RAC-tent. And you can read about them here: http:\/\/www.ractent.com\/.\u00a0 But, they are basically modular tents made for scientific work in polar environments. It sits at the edge of the airfield apron, and has doors at either end. Ours has two main areas: the front area where we will process our flight data and do other work, and the back area for our flight instruments and extra gear. The back doors are big double doors to easily load and unload our instruments. The first task was just to get all the cargo that was shipped down here into the tent. Once it arrived from the plane (the same C-17 we were on), it was held in the Cargo area. Some equipment is temperature sensitive, so certain cargo is marked “DO NOT FREEZE”, and held in appropriate areas until it was ready to be moved to our tent (and our tent was ready for it). Once we had electricity and heat, we were ready to move in. The next step was to unpack everything and set up our computers\u00a0and instruments and make sure everything was working. The tents are nice and cozy. We have two stoves that warm the place (one in each section). The air is really dry down here, so we put a pot of water on top of the stoves so that when it heats up, and simmers, it adds moisture to the air. We just add snow when the water gets low. And we also have a tea and coffee area, along with water and snacks. We will be spending ~11 hrs here when we are on shift, so we need to be a bit self-contained. Continue reading Setting up our work tent<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":799,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions\/799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.esr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}