Today we did not see much of the sun, but also the wind was mostly absent, which is a great help for our outdoor tasks. Hence, our solar panel team, Charlotte, Jonathan and Rahul, managed to install 10 more panels, and thus passed the half way mark with 40 out of the 78 planned panels installed! Thomas used the low winds to start making a new big trench with the Pistenbully snowblower, the plan being it should be used for storage after we turn it into a cave using our big balloon. Making use of much smaller balloons, we now have a completely cast cable trench system for our 4 weatherports that are in line. Kevin thus started the day installing power cables in the cable ducts, with some help from Bo, and then connecting up the weatherports. Carlos was also outside, working together with Sepp on getting the small trench for radiation measurements just right. The drillers also had a busy Monday working on readying everything for drilling with a drill liquid, as well as other smaller tasks (see report below).
After and excellent dinner prepared by Anders, worked resumed in the drillers workshop, with Julien, Chantal and Jonathan helping Carlos making his luminescence samples ready, a task that required turning the workshop into a completely dark environment, with only red lights allowed.
What we did this Monday:
- Mounted snowblower on Pistenbully and started excavation of storage trench.
- Worked on tower installations and tower control.
- Worked on inclined trench installations.
- Made cable trench to drillers workshop.
- Installed power cables to weatherports 2, 3 and 4.
- Mounted 10 solar panels on the dome, 40 panels are now in place.
- Worked in trench for radiation measurements.
- Darkened drillers workshop.
- Prepared luminescence samples.
Re 2-5: Drillers’ report:
Lots of small tasks around the drill tent today: Julien and Chantal worked in the inclined trench all day – fitting hose fittings to the hole cover, fabricating a new lid, removing ice from the path of the drill, test fitting the flexible liner, and flattening the surface around the borehole. They also made a plan for how the fluid will be recirculated and pumped from new drums. Grant completed the mounting the actuator drip tray on the tower, including modifications. Then mounted the drill limit switch. James refabricated part of the inclined trench handrail, to make more room for us to pass by the drillers cabin. Then prepared a frame for the coming elephant grates (to protect us from the cable near the ground). And finally made a cable trench to run power to the workshop. Kevin ran power to the weatherports and then made software changes to the drill tower controller (setting the brake whenever the enable button is not pressed). And completed fabrication of the spare tower pendant controller.
Weather: A cloudy Monday with low winds. Temp. from -16C to -9C. Wind decreasing from 10kts in the early morning to complete calm in the evening, turning from SW to NW.
FL, Bo Vinther
