I spent my first day on the ice at the Long Duration Balloon (LDB) Facility, where we work daily to prepare the STO-2 gondola and instrument. (LDB will be the subject of many future posts.)

After work, I attended a training session on outdoor skills in Antarctica. The training itself covers the flagging system (aka early GPS, so you know that you are on the trail and not walking into a snow covered crevasse) and procedures for checking out at the firehouse to let the right people know you are out hiking.

It is mostly common-sense, straight-forward information, but was required in order to walk down to the Ob Tube (Observation Tube), which I did with my friends and colleagues Chris and Kay from Arizona State University promptly after completing the training.

The Ob Tube is a hole is drilled in the sea ice and a long tube with an observation deck is inserted at the bottom. From here, one can observe the beauty of the sea. I saw only small fish and beautiful ice formations inside the Ob Tube, but a seal was resting on the sea ice outside. We also had a fantastic view of Ob Hill (Observation Hill). Enjoy the pictures from the evening!

TAGS:STO-2, ANTARCTICA, MCMURDO, ASTRONOMY, ASTROPHYSICS, BALLOONING

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jenna Kloosterman, NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow

  Jenna Kloosterman is a NASA postdoctoral program fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, researching new instruments for radio astronomy. For the past two years, she has worked on the Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory II, or STO-2, a balloon-born observatory designed to study how stars are born. During the Antarctic summer of 2011-2012, she spent 10 weeks at McMurdo Station for STO’s first flight and returns in November 2015 for a second. She earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and both a master’s degree in astronomy and a doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Arizona. Outside of work, she enjoys yoga, hiking, and modern dance, as well as serving as co-chair of the Caltech Postdoc Association.