By Ryan Walker

Christine stands near to our instruments and equipment, ready to be shipped to Antarctica.

We arrived safely in Christchurch, New Zealand. On Wednesday morning we went over to the International Antarctic Centre to check up on our instruments and equipment. We have five GPS receivers for measuring horizontal ice motion, and two tilt meters for measuring the angle of the ice shelf as it flexes with ocean tides. (We borrowed these instruments from Sridhar Anandakrishnan of Penn State, and will collaborate with him to analyze the data.) Each GPS or tilt meter fits in a plastic case about the size of a carry on suitcase. However, for powering the instruments, we also need solar panels and car batteries (which weigh over 30 pounds each). There are also tools (such as an ice drill — thanks to Bob Hawley of Dartmouth) and over 125 feet of metal pipes that we will use to mount the solar panels and satellite antennas for the GPS. All together, it’s close to 600 pounds of equipment — some shipped from Goddard, and some ordered in New Zealand — so it was a huge relief to see everything in good shape and in the right place.

We found that the batteries had a slightly different type of terminal than we had expected. In order to make a firm connection between the batteries and instruments, which is critical because the stations will be deployed for roughly three months, we had to find specific size bolts and nuts and other wiring components. We spent the rest of the morning visiting a hardware store (twice), an automotive store, and a computer store before successfully finding the parts we needed. Not terribly exciting, but necessary, and handling this sort of issue is a big reason why we arrived in Christchurch a few days before our flight. We did manage to have some fun in the afternoon by visiting the Canterbury Museum, which has historical, cultural, and scientific exhibits and is adjacent to a large and beautiful botanical garden.

Tomorrow afternoon, we’ll be back at the International Antarctic Centre to meet up with the Italian Antarctic program for about an hour’s worth of basic preflight safety training. (Because their stations are nearby, the Korean and Italian programs share flights.) We’ll find out tomorrow exactly what time our flight leaves, but we already know it will be quite early in the morning. It’s a roughly 6 hour flight down to the ice runway at Italy’s Stazione Mario Zucchelli, and we’ll need to wear full Antarctic clothing the whole time. (Fortunately, it’s been fairly cool in Christchurch — highs in the 50’s F — so this shouldn’t be all that uncomfortable.) We haven’t heard yet how we will travel to Jang Bogo Station — it could be by ground vehicles or by helicopter — but we expect this to provide us with our first good photo opportunities before we settle down to work.

Tags: Antarctica, Christchurch, cryosphere, NASA, polar science

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2015 at 9:25 am and is filed under Nansen Ice Shelf, Antarctica 2015. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.