Harvey Scholar Travels - Rachel Gregg in New Zealand

Thanks to the Harvey Travel Grant, I was able to go abroad to New Zealand for a little over 3 months with the cosmic ray experiment EUSO-SPB. I had been doing research with this experiment for about a year and a half, and I was sent as the lead mechanical lead for the payload. There were 3 large mechanical structures that were sent to Texas than New, Zealand that had to be disassembled and reassembled repeatedly these included they payloads exoskeleton,and 2 accompanying carts. When completely assembled, the payload stood 15 feet high. While in New Zealand I assembled the mechanical structures in addition to helping assemble the internal electronics for the cosmic ray detector and washed the specially made fresnel lenses for the experiment.

Mechanical Team members Randy Bachman (Mines Machine Shop Head), Rachel Gregg (Undergraduate), Zachary Polonsky (Undergraduate) in various stages of the mechanical fabrication process. Also including Johannes Eser(PhD Student), Lawrence Wiencke (Mines PI), and Doug Huie (University of Alabama Huntsville Technician)

In order to get the community more involved in the NASA mission happening in the small town, the Wanaka Airport hosted an open house where members of the community were welcomed to the hanger to see the EUSO-SPB payload and ask the science team questions. Over 200 members of the community came with much excitement about the huge operation happening near the small town of Wanaka. There was then a VIP reception for special guests including the United States Ambassador to New Zealand, Chargé d’Affaires Candy Green.

Left to Right: Rachel Gregg (Colorado School of Mines); Debbie Fairbrother, Chief, NASA’s Balloon Program Office; Chargé d’Affaires Candy Green, the acting U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand, and Angela Olinto, University of Chicago in front of the EUSO-SPB payload.

Later in March every subgroup of the launch and science team ran through their procedure for a launch day. NASA rigging crew went through the procedure for rigging the payload to the launch vehicle, attaching the solar panel skirt to the payload and connecting the flight train including the parachute and balloon to the back of the launch vehicle. On the electronics side, the EUSO-SPB detector and the NASA electronics called the SIP were turned on. A series of flight commands for the EUSO-SPB and the SIP were exercised. The tests verified that neither instrument interfered from one another during operation. This test also served as a trial run for roll out on launch day. From this point until launch day, NASA was observing the weather and safety of the possible launch days since the wind and climb out have to be very specific in order for the launch to be NASA approved.

The payload during a launch attempt.

During the 8 launch attempt mornings, there was an entire checklist the scientists needed to go through and needed the payload to be in different stages of assembly to do so. I was the main lead in communicating what stage of assembly was needed from the scientists and the execution of the stage with the help of the NASA rigging crew. The balloon was successfully launched on the 8th attempt on the morning of April 25th.

The successful launch of EUSO-SPB from Wanaka New, Zealand the morning of April 25th, 2017.

When I was not working, I was able to adventure to Dunedin to see the only castle in New Zealand and the adorable blue penguins in the wild. I also made it to Millford Sound and took a boat cruise around the lake.In Wanaka, I was able to do some local hikes including Rob Roy’s peak which had one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen.