s.s.113 N.174 Contrada Milo
              91100 Trapani, Italy
              Ph.: (39.923) 539928/539036
              Fax: (39.923) 538493
              Tlx: 911253 - 910263
 

Direct phone line: 39 (0)923 55 0116 NEW PHONE NUMBER: 0923 55 0112
Standard:                39 (0)923 55 3484
Fax:                          39 (0)923 53 8493
 
 

• Arrival on Wednesday 16 June of Paolo, Silvia, Armando,  Federico in the morning, and Alain, Henri, Maurice, Daniel & Xavier in the afternoon at the Trapani ASI base: All boxes are downloaded. Alain is at work

(Paolo and Armando working in Grenoble on the stellar sensor and the secondary).
• The gyros are ready
• Thursday 17All boxes are open, the cryostat is OK and the gondolas (external and internal) meet each other for the first time. ASI has got a brand new crane (size of the tyre 1.7m) in front of Erice.
• Friday 18 June: First cooling of the cryostat.  Alain closes the cryostat. Jean-Charles arrives.
• Saturday 19 June: 0.1 K is celebrated in Trapani. Daniel leaves in the morning. Laurent arrives at 5. The first balloon for this campaign (UV, cosmic rays and biology) was not launched due to too strong winds. Next attempt tomorrow
• Sunday 20 June: The cryostat is on the gondola. The calibration cryostat works in front of it.
• Here is a series of local pictures
• Henri & Maurice prepare the cooking
• Before they go back to Grenoble, Henri & Maurice cook us a nice BarbeQ.
• Tuesday 22 June: Philippe Filliatre and Marian Douspis arrive
• Wednesday 23 June: Paolo leaves for Asiago for 2 days. Here is the group photo on a metal structure that we recently found.
• Thursday 24 June: The pivot to spin the gondola just arrived (sent by Andrea). The experiment is now complete in terms of hardware (Bruno brings the last  high freq. bolometer on Friday). The two mirrors are now aligned in the gondola. Last night (no photo) the first flight, experiment number 1 (we are 3rd) happened successfully, although it did not leave Sicily apparently. Archeops is still scheduled to fly from 8 to 17th July. Here you can see that everyone take care of the gondola gondola
• Friday 25 June: Xavier leaves in the morning for Grenoble for the week end. Paolo is back. You can see here the first results of our test of the stellar sensors.Vega pointed by Paolo by hands and detected by different diodes, and a zoom on one diode signal.(x-axis is s., and y-axis is digital converter unit (2048 full scale)). In the evening Laurent leaves and Bruno arrives. The cryostat is cooled for the second time, and the gondola is fixed on its paltform.
• Saturday 26 June: During the morning, we put the pivot and try to spin the gondola right and left. Then we put the gondola outside to check the signal of the bolometers with our artificial source. Our specialist of "fork lift", Silvia, moving the source. That's the first time that the mirror sees the blue sky of Trapani (back view). Everything is connected, we can begin. We've seen the source at 20 m distance! Our recompense is to see the beautiful landscape from Erice: the beach where everyone will go after our succesfull flight.
• Monday 28 June: We try the platform of the gondola and make maps of one of the towers of Erice. We see the submillimeter signal of the tower. So we decide to look for our source. We put our source on the montain of Erice, at 2.5 km from the launch site. After one hour of scans around the source, the cryostat start warming: no more liquid Helium ! We do not see the source. So, we put the gondola in and we start checking the pivot engine. Jacques and Elie arrive in the end of the afternoon.
• Tuesday 29 June:We open the cryostat and add a new bolometer. Xavier comes back in the afternoon. We test the pivot engine, it needs about 2 A for 350kg (we expect 6 A for the flight).
• Wednesday 30 June: Big check up for the cryostat, everything seems all right. We move everything in an other hangar, higher. NEW PHONE NUMBER: 0923 55 0112. We start to put the telemetry stuff in the lower part of the gondola. Jean-Charles," mister 48-resistors soldered per minute" goes back to Paris. Karine arrives in the afternoon. In the evening Alain "il padre" takes some well deserved holidays.
• Thursday 1 July: We close the cryostat and wait for helium. The telemetry is almost put on the gondola.
• Friday 2 July: The Helium arrives in the morning, so we start cooling the cryostat. The stellar sensor, and the "roll bars" are now on the gondola. Paolo tests the spinning of the gondola. They fix the UV background experiment (piggyback!) to the side opposite to the stellar sensor.
• Saturday 3 July: The cryostat is still cooling. Federico and Armando are putting the protection foam on the gondola. See also the gondola drawings at the federico site. Didier et Francois write some pages (postscript) about compression
• Sunday 4 July: The cryostat does not want to be cold; we warm it up.
• Monday 5 July: "Il padre e' tornato!": Alain is back! We start cooling the cryostat again. Jim arrives in the afternoon. Here you can see some pictures of last week.
• Tuesday 6 July: We make tests on the cryostat and check the response of the bolometers. We also check the diodes of the stellar sensor. This takes us all the day and a large part of the night
• Wednesday 7 July: The data acquisition and processing part of the team moves again to the telemetry room (renamed ADAC, for Archeops Data Aquisition/Analysis Center); so here is the second Phone number: 0923 55 0128 . Richard, Jean-Philippe and Didier arrive by sea from Paris with various equipement for the new data center. Earliest possible flight the 10.
• Thursday 8 July: Weather conditions deteriorate some, making it unlikely that the flight will take place on the 10th. Wait and see over the next few days. Gondola is taken out of the hanger, suspended by the large crane, for telemetry/telecommand tests. Small panic when the gyroscopes show no life; but all ok - just a loose connection quickly fixed with some solder. The instrument continues to disappear as more and more of the baffling is added.
• Friday 9 July: Weather may permit flight on the Sunday night, but not sure. Up on the mountain, clouds waft acrosste Erice. Gondola was again taken from the hanger to be weighed; baffles continue to be added; telemetry tests continue, as well as work on the data aquisition pipeline.
• Saturday 10 July: Lots of preparation for a possible flight on Sunday night: The gondola was taken from the hanger (out into the heat!) in order to measure sidelobes. During the operation a power loss created several minutes of extreme tension, but the cryostat recovered quickly. However, during the sidelobe measurements ran out of Helium and warmed up, causing a several hour delay. To the great joy of all, the aluminium taping was finished. The flight EPROMs where programmed.
• Sunday 11 July: The flight is not possible for today, we enter a waiting phase (less tiring,but agravating). Shaul left early in the morning. The group finally had the chance to catch up on some sleep, very much appreciated by all! You can see here and here a lot of pictures we don't have time to comment.
• Monday 12 July: The weather still does not permit a flight for today, so we continue to wait, continuing work on the aquisition pipeline and telemetry tests; the cryostat remained cold. Group photo is taken in front of the gondola. Elley left at midday (hope you're getting some well-deserved sleep!). During the afternoon food shopping, an important decision was taken to barbeQ on the beach for dinner - proposition well received by all!
• Tuesday 13 July: Waiting continues - weather will not permit a launch today. All the same, it's very hot at 40 C. The daily weather meetings are closely followed by all, and there are now many weather experts amoung us!
• Wednesday 14 July: Bastille Day, but work continues. It was again clear by the morning weather breifing that we will not fly tonight due to strong surface winds caused by a passing front. In arriving this morning, it was noticed that there must be a small leak in the cryostat. The decision was taken to take the chance of missing a launch tomorrow and reopen the cryostat (which then requires about 24 hours to recool). Francois and Yannick arrive from Paris as the cryostat is being reopened. The leak is not found, but we add an additional charcoal pump to help control the leak. The cryostat is reclosed by 6pm, in order to just make it for a possible launch tomorrow, which looks more and more promising.
• Thursday 15 July: Morning weather briefing: LAUNCH WILL BE ATTEMPTED TONIGHT AT 21H00. The winds have calmed down quite a bit. Tomorrow may be even better, but we will take our first chance to launch. Final decision will be made on the flight field at 17H45 with the latest weather outlook. If all goes well, the web page will be off line for a day or so.... DELAYED..... due to wind. The gondola remains in the hanger while the team decides to do some archival work and study some time-tested experimental techniques.
• Friday 16 July: New attempt today; weather outlook is good. The gondola is taken from the hanger to the field. BAD NEWS: the cryostat does not appear to be functioning properly once out on the field, and the launch is canceled. The instrument is returned to the hangar. Morale remains good, although the level of concern is rather high; we don't know if the problem is serious or not.
• Saturday 17 July: By the morning it is clear that the cryostat is in fact in good shape and once again functioning properly, after a long night for cryo team. The weather outlook remains good for tonight. At last up-date, the gondola is once again out on the flight field, and we are all waiting and hoping. The cryostat is cooling and at present down to 800 mK. Guy and Fabrice left this morning.
• The flight in pictures (here, here and there)
• The recovery in Spain
• Back to Grenoble

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Last Update 17 July 1999
Suggestions are welcome to F.-Xavier Désert