We have all of the instruments we brought with us assembled and have begun testing. A few instruments need to be calibrated using liquid nitrogen tomorrow (Saturday) starting at 06:45. On four particular identical instruments there was an issue with material being too thick to get a milspec connector to lock down all the way, so the plates to which they are mounted will need to be modified next week.
This afternoon Dave, Adam, and Al inspected the 21/31 GHz Hughes radiometer (photo below, L to R). They were discussing calibration techniques and decided we will install this particular unit on the plane and calibrate it in place since some of the lens mounting needs to be done by spot-drilling holes.
Miao is carefully installing a few thermistors on the L-Band feedhorn here. It also appears that he is reading the newspaper at the same time. Don't be fooled, thermistor installation while catching up with the sports section is no simple matter of walking and chewing gum.
We've also been having some very hot weather outside. Today was the coolest, topping off at 101 F. In those kind of temperatures I hear you need to be cautious of heat exhaustion, so I didn't forget to take a little down time for number one.
In other news, Al is flying back tomorrow night to get the instrument we decided to add at the last minute. It's a 55 GHz unit that we'll use for temperature sounding in conjunction with data from the dropsondes (more on that tomorrow). It's pretty late to be adding another instrument to the manifest but it will significantly contribute to the scientific goals of the mission.
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