Summer is indeed winding down at the Pole. Last week saw the departure of the two remaining IceCube summer personnel, leaving IceCube’s two intrepid winterovers on their own until next November. The week was full of activity, though, mostly focused on tasks related to the ARA project, like troubleshooting communications (which required digging out and opening a vault, see image below) and performing calibrations. Taking advantage of the wind, IceCube winterover Hrvoje got in some kite flying, shown above at the ceremonial Pole. Since flying drones at the Pole is prohibited, due to radio interference, Hrvoje tested out a camera attached to the kite to capture some aerial photos. Looks like that worked pretty well—the bottom images shows the South Pole station from the kite’s vantage point.
