It was a
lovely Sunday today. The sun was shining and only a light haze on the
horizon stood between the sun and the FTS instruments. Rodica, Felicia
and Pierre headed up to the lab early, making full use of the day -
which is now dramatically longer than it was this time a week ago (the
sun rose at
9:42 am and set at 4:17pm). Tom, Volodya and I took the SPS apart at
the station, and were able to un-jam the prism pointing unit motor,
removing some corrosion to let the gears turn freely again. After
putting it back together, we enjoyed a lovely brunch before heading up
to the lab (with Matt and Cristen) for the afternoon.
Up at the lab, where conditions were near perfect (no wind, sunny and
only -30 degrees) Cristen and Matt got all the tracker motors and
computer units moved to the penthouse, and determined the need for one
more shelf for the PEARL-GBS. Cristen was also able to find a
work-around for her communication errors, so things are all looking
good there now. Tom and Volodya reinstalled the SPS, which is working
happily again. Unfortunately attempts to run both MAESTROs on one
computer weren't so successful, but since putting MAESTRO-UV back on
its own computer, we haven't seen any recurrence of the intermittent
communication errors.
The DIAL team had another near perfect observing night, and the Raven
ozonesonde launch, by Andre and Kelly, was absolutely perfect. In all,
everyone was very happy with their Sunday, and we are looking forward
to another good week ahead.