Last week, the IceCube crew completed the drilling and installation for the first of the IceCube Upgrade strings. Above is a group of drillers on the day shift after deploying more than half of the modules into the hole. By the end of the week, they had begun drilling for the next hole. There are of course lots of steps to set up for each hole, including moving the tower operations, getting the modules staged in the handling facility, and craning the main cable assembly into place. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Drilling has begun! Of course, it didn’t “just happen”—lots of hard work went into getting all the necessary pieces to come together. The previous week’s readiness review had identified a number of critical action items to address before actual drilling could begin. Once resolved, drill preparations began. The drill team routed hot …
The Upgrade team has begun to disperse—not all at once but in groups, like when they had arrived earlier in the season. But they’ve been taking nice group photos when and where they can, before too many people leave. Above is a small group gathered around the last D-Egg that was deployed—that’s a …
Last week’s excitement for the IceCube Upgrade project centered around moving the drill tower and operations structures into place. The location is over hole 87, which will be the first Upgrade hole (the IceCube detector has 86 holes). The installation team is also making progress on setting up the area for acceptance …
