Greg Sullivan

Feb. 3, 2005
South Pole Station

I arrived at the South Pole late yesterday. I was scheduled to fly in today from McMurdo, but arrangements were made to fly me down yesterday to get me here earlier. It was nice because I was the only passenger (PAX) on the C-130. The crew was really nice and let me sit in the cockpit for the entire flight. The views were amazing at take off and landing. They gave me headphones also, so I was able to listen and participate in the crew's discussion.

On the Skiway outside the plane, I met the existing on-ice lead, Albrecht Karle, who was handing off the lead to me. We discussed how things were going with the first string that was deployed. I then kind of settled into my accommodations in the new station. Luxurious compared to the old accommodations I had on my last trip in 2003. I then met with the rest of the group to get a status update on the first string.

The string went in on Jan 28th after the hot water drill was used for several days to make a hole in the ice 2450m deep. The deployment of the 60 DOMS on the first string took about 12 hours and went well. Since then, we have been monitoring the string as the hole refreezes. We are anxiously waiting for the process to complete to verify that the DOMs survive the tremendous pressure of the re-freeze. We also can't begin regular running and data taking until they are frozen in and tested. So, we're all very anxious as we monitor them. The hole refreezes from the top down and, so far, about the top half (30 DOMs) have frozen in and are communicating to the computers at the surface. We hope they will all be frozen sometime this weekend.

Greg Sullivan

Feb. 2, 2005
McMurdo Base on the coast of Antarctica

I arrived by C-141 transport yesterday afternoon here to McMurdo Base. I am scheduled to fly to South Pole tomorrow, so I'm spending today catching up on email and other work. The weather has been really good lately. It is sunny, light winds and a high of 0 degrees Celsius. They say it has been nice like this for more than a week.

For my "accommodations" for the two nights I was put in a room with two bunks. One of my roomies was just back from the field where he does geology research. They fly out to the "dry valleys" by helicopter and set up a camp for extended periods while they do their research. He and his team were just back in from their last expedition and are heading north on Friday. The guy is an English bloke and it was interesting talking with him.

It's 5 a.m. here and I've been up for an hour. I have a conference call for Wednesday 5:30 a.m. here (Tuesday 11:30 a.m. in Maryland). It is one of IceCube's regular weekly tech board calls and we will be discussing last minute issues for the deployment this season.

I heard from Erik Bluffs (another UM scientist) who is at the pole now and scheduled to leave the day I arrive. He had a detailed report on the test string that was put in the ice last week. Basically, we’re waiting for the hole to completely refreeze so we can power it up full time and assess its performance. This will be one of my main tasks while I’m there, along with preparing all the equipment for the winter over season.

Best Regards from McMurdo,
Greg Sullivan

Jan. 31, 2005
Christchurch, New Zealand

Just finished the ECW(extreme cold weather) clothing issue and received our initial flight info. I'm scheduled to fly to McMurdo on the Antarctic coast tomorrow morning. Flying on a C-141 air force cargo jet. Probably have to spend a day there before the flight to the Pole.

It is strange getting ECW issue when the temperature is 75 degrees and it is sunny out. Summer in Christchurch is beautiful.

I learned that during my flight this weekend that the first IceCube string was deployed in the ice. This is the first and only string going in this year and will be a real test of the performance before full deployment starts next year. The hot water drill worked well.

Initial communications with the DOMs on the string look good. We'll have to wait almost 9 days until the refreeze is complete and we can turn them all on for full operations and testing.

My next report should be from McMurdo, if all goes well.

Signing off

Greg Sullivan