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Uncovering TIGER & the Boss
After letting
TIGER warm up a little over night, Dana removed
the EMI shield from the instrument to reveal its innards.
TIGER's EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) shield serves a number of
purposes. For us, it serves to elminate any electromagnetic
"noise" that NSBF's Support Integration Payload (SIP) may
generate. Since the SIP is responsible for assuring that TIGER's
data is telemetered during the balloon flight, it continously transmits
radio waves which can hamper the way that our photomultiplier tubes
(PMTs) and pulse-height analysis (PHA) system operates. There are
192 PMTs on TIGER that are responsible for taking in light produced in
the scintillators,
hodoscopes, or Cherenkov detectors and
converting this light into a flow of electrons, or a current. The
PHA system takes this current and converts the amount of charge coming
in to a digital value as a particle passes through the instrument, so
that the amount of light released can be better quantified.
TIGER's EMI shield is also important because these
PMTs can also generate a lot
of electromagnetic noise. This year, with ANITA as our piggyback
experiment, it is important to shield them from any radio noise, since
they are looking for neutrino-induced radio Cherenkov emissions in the
ice.
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It was an
exciting day for the NSBF crew. The Boss, the brand new launch
vehicle, on its "maiden" balloon campaign was repaired (it had leaks
from weathering during the winter months) and was successfully started
up today. The crew drove it around a bit - it's a pretty
fantastic sight to behold. The launch vehicle is an important
part of every balloon campaign. Since long-duration balloons are
so large, even the slightest wind can cause them to drag a payload
quite a lot during launch. In addition to the driver, someone
must stand where the payload hangs to direct the driver with the wind
flow to keep the payload safe during launch. Here is a picture of TIGER be-
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