2013-14 Aerial Photos--January 2014

The dark sector

The dark sector looking northeast...from left: ICL, DSL (which houses SPT and BICEP3 (officially NOT an acronym), and MAPO, which houses the Keck Array telescopes.	Looking southwest at the same 3 buildings. In the center can be seen the campground site and cache for nongovernmental visitors.
Next, some closer views at the dark sector facilities.
The ICL looking northwest...	...and a closer view from the same angle.
Here is a really close look at the ICL roof.	About a mile WSW of the ICL, here we are looking at one of the wind turbine test sites for the ARA project...something else being developed by the IceCube folks in Wisconsin and elsewhere (old project website). They've already published some papers, and do plan more site work in 2017-18.
The Dark Sector Lab, looking southwest...	...and a closer look at DSL looking northwest...showing more of the front of the building.
And another view looking southeast...interesting that all of the foundation trusses are exposed.	Moving on, here's MAPO looking southwest. It's been here awhile, so you can not see the foundation trusses under the main building. Behind it is the power substation building 61.
A closer look. On the left is the Keck array, which was constructed on the telescope mount formerly used by DASI. It consists of five polarimeter refracting telescopes sometimes nicknamed for the Spice Girls; the first 3 went on line in 2010-11.	This view gives a good look into the Keck Array ground shield. At the far end is the structure and empty ground shield for the VIPER telescope. It was decommissioned in 2005. The instrument was removed in 2006-07; the rest of the structure would be removed in 2014-15.
One more MAPO photo, looking south, with some of the flight line in the background.	To finish up, here's the power substation building 61. The white module in the foreground houses a 150kw (site rated) emergency generator which was originally part of the 1990s era station emergency power plant.
To finish up, a bit of additional documentation:
This is the Twin Otter being prepped for the photo mission. A couple of things to note...first, the yellow unit in front of the aircraft is the new generation Herman Nelson heater (notice the bit of heater hose behind it). These are diesel (well, AN-8) fired, computer controlled, and include two 120v 60hz electrical outlets as well. They hold up well at Pole temperatures, although they need to be started up indoors. (full size photo--5613x3744, 1.5mb).	Here's Ian's look at the flight crew up front.