Summer upgrades to the SPS (South Pole System), part of IceCube’s computing infrastructure, were completed this week, and two IceCubers who had been working at the Pole, Ralf and James, left for warmer climes. […]
Week 49 at the Pole
Life at the Pole
Week 48 at the Pole
Indoor tasks can be done just about any time, but for outdoor activities you need some cooperation from the weather. A bright sunny day makes things better still. Even with a few bouts of bad weather that caused postponements, there was plenty of outdoor work accomplished this week. […]
Week 47 at the Pole
Just in time for Thanksgiving dinner, the South Pole traverse arrived, bringing fuel that would otherwise have had to come by plane. IceCube winterover Stefan skied out to check it out […]
Week 46 at the Pole
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s … no, wait, it’s just a plane. Actually, it’s a particular plane—a C-17, a large military transport aircraft—training for air drops over the South Pole station. […]
Week 45 at the Pole
Last week, winterovers Erik and Stephan arrived, and this week Dag and Ian are leaving. Here they are, all four together out on the ice for the last time. […]
Week 44 at the Pole
Another summer season at the South Pole station means another changing of the guard for IceCube’s winterovers. This year’s Erik Beiser and Stephan Richter have arrived, two fresh faces ready to embark on their yearlong adventure, while Dag Larsen and Ian Rees, last year’s winterovers, made their final preparations for leaving the ice. […]
Week 43 at the Pole
There’s a bit of prep work involved in getting the station ready for its summer opening. IceCube winterovers Ian and Dag used this time to perform an IceTop snow survey and to finish up snow removal around the ICL. […]
Week 42 at the Pole
For a place that receives so little precipitation, there’s an awful lot of snow around. So much snow that bulldozers are sometimes enlisted to move it out of the way, as shown here in front of this parked Basler aircraft. Planes can get stuck at the South Pole for days on end due to bad weather. And if high winds are part of that bad weather, then snow accumulation can be a problem. […]
Week 41 at the Pole
After the sun’s arrival come the planes. The first of the season to reach the South Pole were a pair of Twin Otters, one of which appears parked in the accompanying image. Behind it is a Basler plane—a somewhat larger ski aircraft—shown just as it was landing, a few days later. […]
Week 40 at the Pole
Water restrictions prompt innovation. When already limited showers get rationed even further, as they have been recently at the South Pole station, you start thinking of ways to work around the problem. […]