FGE Recovery

The Flare Genesis Experiment payload returning from Antarctica.

I'll have to rewrite this page soon - if nothing else, the tense must now be changed from future to past! Hopefully, I'll hear from Harry as to exactly what happened, so I can replace all my speculation with fact!

Last week, Harry returned to the United States, after two and a half months away. We have also been notified that the experiment should be in New York by January 30, and, depending upon the time needed to clear customs, should show up at APL the week after.

A clean room in APL's Building 23 has been made available to us, and as soon as practicable, we will unpack the payload, detach the pressure vessels, and carry out a step-by-step test of the systems. As soon as we feel it is safe, we will put everything back together, power up, and check out the pointing etc.

While we know of some damage to the telescope, it will take a more extensive series of tests to know exactly what condition the experiment is in, and how much work must be done to refurbish it for its next flight. While the current schedule calls for a flight at the end of this year, achieving that will clearly depend upon nothing critical being broken.

	S69d 03.6886m  E141d 29.354m 1980m/6500ft

With the aim of recovering the bulk of the payload i.e. the telescope, computers, mechanisms and the frame, FGE Team Member, Harry Eaton, of APL's TSE group, left the United States for Antarctica on November 16. Harry flew first to Christchurch, New Zealand, and then by RNZAF C-130 to McMurdo, arriving on 1996 November 20, local time.

The recovery plan called first for Harry to attend a two-day survival training camp, referred to as "Happy Camper School", before joining an Italian Twin Otter (based at Terra Nova Bay , (S74.695 E164.123) for a flight from McMurdo to a French-Italian research site at Dome Concordia. (Concordia is a relatively new operation near Dome C II (S75.121 E123.374 3250m/10660ft), which is more likely to be on a map.) Once there Harry was to join a group that is traversing to the French base of Dumont d'Urville, situated on the Adelie coast (S66.665 E140.007 30m), on a route that was first opened up in November, 1993. The traverse, so far as we can ascertain, is now a regular operation carried out in the relative comfort of large (i.e. Antarctic class) tracked vehicles. On this journey, "relative" refers to an outside temperature of below -30C/-20F. Inside, according to Harry's primary source of information, Brooks Montgomery, who did this last year, the brutal beating you receive riding over the hard sastrugi and bashing around in the tractor is like being beat up in a bar brawl every day for 8 hours! That traverse took 14 days, (with one shortened day to celebrate Christmas).

Courtesy of Brooks Montgomery, the map below shows, in orange, the path taken last year. It is likely that Harry's journey will be similar, probably with the diversion to the landing site being made as short as practicable. Once there, the gondola will be excavated from the snow and ice, and placed upon a large sled to continue in the traverse.

Temperatures and wind speeds in the region from November to mid-January are available as graphs here:

• Dome C
• Dumont d'Urville
• McMurdo Region
• South Pole

Upon reaching Dumont d'Urville, Harry must prepare the gondola for shipping, pack it in a box that had been built for the purpose in Christchurch, and ensure that everything is placed aboard the French research support ship, l'Astrolabe.

Harry and the gondola will then journey with l'Astrolabe to Hobart, Australia. The gondola will be unloaded and shipped to Melbourne, from where it will be flown to the United States. Harry will be unloaded and flown to Sydney and then home.

In keeping with the Antarctic experience, Harry only learned of the altitude at Dome C (some 400m/1300ft higher than South Pole) when he was in Christchurch. So upon reaching McMurdo, he prepared as well as he could, immediately attending an altitude survival school and stocking up on the drugs now available to help ward off sickness.

The Italian Twin Otter was originally going to pick Harry up in McMurdo on November 28, and on the day before, we received email from him suggesting that all was well. We didn't hear from him over the next several days and knowing that there would be little opportunity to call or email while "on the road", everyone here concluded that he had departed for the main part of his adventure! No such luck. Email received December 4 EST pronounced that he was still stuck in McMurdo, with the plane expected "any day now". Bad weather had apparently also delayed the traverse team heading to Concordia as well, just to make matters more interesting.

Under the latest schedule, Harry was to leave Wednesday 1996 December 11, with the French-Italian traverse team expected to arrive at Concordia from Dumont d'Urville on December 12. Departure for the return trip was set for December 14.

We have received no email from Harry since Tuesday December 10 EST, when he finally managed to leave McMurdo for Concordia. ASA's Ron Nugent confirmed that Harry arrived safely, as contact was made by HF radio.

Email sent out by Dave Rust summarized the position just before the new year, based upon an Inmarsat phone call and a telex he received from Harry:
The Flare Genesis Experiment was retrieved just before Christmas by Harry and a team from the Institute Francais pour la Recherche et la Technologie Polaires (IFRTP). It is generally in good shape, but one secondary mirror actuator and the heat pipe are broken, and the bottom of the frame is mangled a bit. We expected much worse, and probably there is some internal damage that we won't know about until we get it back to APL.

Harry and all are now at Dumont d'Urville, the French station on the Antarctic coast. He describes it as Willy field (the U.S. station) without the airport. There are cranes etc to use for dismantling the experiment and packing the parts into the boxes, which are on the supply ship from Hobart, Tasmania. A problem is that the ship is trapped in ice 6 km from the shore. Harry plans to take the boat out, but first it must get to the port and unload. Since it will leave as soon as unloading is completed, it is not clear that Harry can get the FGE in the freshly unloaded boxes and get them on the ship in time. Loading the parts into the boxes should take only a half day, so let's be optmistic. (Our chances of a reflight in 1997 will be lost if the FGE does not reach APL in January.)

Harry had planned to clear the snow from the payload inside the garage, but that is being used to refurbish the tractors for the next traverse. Nevertheless, he was able to clear virtually all the snow during a few sunny warm days. Right now the telescope is staked down (upright) on a pallet, with a tarp covering the windward side. Despite wind and snow, very little snow is getting into it.

The miserable flu epidemic in the U.S. seems to have reached Dumont d'Urville. Many of the staff members are ill, even though the boat hasn't reached there yet. Maybe the flu virus can even leap across frozen continents.

Here are two views of Dumont d'Urville taken from a Qantas 747-400 as it flew over the French base on January 18, 1998, at an altitude of about ten thousand feet: (Courtesy P. Murphy, Australia) Dumont d'Urville and again. In both of these views, the runway built in 1993 can be clearly identified. According to one report (the Antarctic Managers Electronic Network link given below), this runway was severely damaged by a storm in January 1994, and with no money for repair, it has been abandoned. Also, note the orange buildings visible in the second picture - the overall colour appears to be the result of some strange interaction between the sunlight reflecting off the ocean and the aircraft's window.

On January 12, Ron Nugent in McMurdo emailed that he had heard from a Twin Otter pilot that Harry and the gondola left Dumont d'Urville onboard l'Astrolabe four days ago! That suggested that Harry should have arrived in Hobart on January 15 or so, which was probably about right. Harry has kept a low profile since then.

Just for reference, Dumont d'Urville, like McMurdo Station, is built on an island, the Ile des Pétrels, Pointe Géologie archipelago. Cap Prud'homme is a staging area on the main land, where the traverse team is based. The only mode of transport between the two places is by helicopter, with a lifting capacity of 1200kg/2700lbs (the gondola weighs around 1500kg/3300lbs).

Once at Dumont d'Urville, Harry will prepare the gondola for shipping, pack it in a box that had been built for the purpose in Christchurch, and ensure that everything is placed aboard the French research support ship, l'Astrolabe. HREF="http://www.enssat.fr/AEAE-EOLE/ANCIENS/PagesPerso/liborio/Photos_DDU.htm"> this site.)

Harry and the gondola will then journey with l'Astrolabe to Hobart, Australia. The gondola will be unloaded and shipped to Melbourne, from where it will be flown to the United States. Harry will be unloaded and flown to Sydney and then home.

Meanwhile, l'Astrolabe is scheduled to arrive in Dumont d'Urville on December 14, depart on December 28, and reach Hobart, January 3. Based upon our current understanding, it will be very close as to whether the gondola can be retrieved, transported, and prepared before the ship leaves Antarctica.

If Harry misses that opportunity, then he will have to wait in Dumont d'Urville until the ship returns on 1997 January 11, with its next departure slated for January 17, and finally arriving in Hobart on January 24.

The map directly below shows the key points of interest, and in red, a stylized version of Harry's journey. The orange line is the traverse path taken last year from Dome C to near Dumont d'Urville, lasting 14 days. This path is shown in greater detail in the second map - annotations give the day of the journey, altitude in feet, and temperature, where available. D-47, D-57 and D-80 are fuel dump sites and/or ice core drilling sites, where automated weather stations are currently active.

Traverse path taken by Brooks Montgomery, 1995 December.

Harry Eatons' path from Concordia to Dumont d'Urville via the Gondola.

It may be possible for the team's daily progress to be greater than this, or less. This is probably dependent upon weather conditions, terrain, equipment, and necessity e.g. it may be desireable to cross the 190km (120mi) from D-57 to the gondola in under a day to reduce the delay to the rest of the team.

D-47, D-57, and D-80 are sites of automated weather stations, possibly fuel dumps, and possibly former or current ice core drilling operations.

The latest weather conditions at McMurdo are available from the Antarctic Meteorology Research Center .

More information on the French Antarctic operations can be gathered from a report to the International Center for Antarctic Information and Research or from the Antarctic Managers Electronic Network.

A list of some of the stations occupied in Antarctica is available in this table.