Week 45 at the Pole

C130landed
Yuya Makino, IceCube/NSF

A plane landing in daylight means summer season and new arrivals at the South Pole. So far things have started off busy for IceCube’s new winterovers. Last week, they got in some training from the outgoing winterovers (who have remained at the Pole longer than planned due to several cancelled flights) as well as their first fire team drill as part of the 2020 station crew. They also dealt with four pages alerting them to detector issues, one around 3:00 am while they were sleeping, an early lesson that the detector never sleeps. Nonetheless, trips out to the IceCube Lab (below, all ready for summer with a freshly built ramp) help get them acquainted with their new surroundings, and they are enjoying these introductory days at the Pole.

snowmeasure
Yuya Makino, IceCube/NSF
ICLramp
Yuya Makino, IceCube/NSF