Today we planned to fly either a future Ice Sat 2 track or part of a high priority land ice mission called Zaccharie-79 N. We were socked in yet again, but the desire to collect data was on! The forecast was tough because the newly open water was creating this thick fog bank that hovered over our Air Base so the call was made to delay our flight due to low visibility. Our science team was monitoring weather models and forecasts regularly and every thirty minutes gathered outside Hangar 8 for an update. Each time we went outside part of the outlook appeared better, but another part became worse. At various points we had precipitation from the thick, low-hanging fog.
The NASA team and NOAA crew meet every 30 minutes to discuss the status of our scheduled science flight during our multi-day fog.
This lasted until 11:00 a.m. when the call was made to prep for planeside at 11:45 a.m. The flight was not set in stone but we would move forward as if we were flying and plan for an abbreviated Zaccharie mission. Each of us had an overnight bag ready to go in case we needed to divert to Kangerlussuaq. That was a real threat especially given the unpredictable weather and visibility and if that happened we would lose two science days and shift our official transit to Kanger scheduled for Tuesday. The final call made at plane-side was that the risk of diverting was not worth an abbreviated priority mission. We would not fly today. Tomorrow is a hard ground day with the airport closed so the next science flight is scheduled for Monday.
In the meantime we took a trip to take in some Thule views and ran into our seal friend again. I'll mention that in order for us to see him we use binoculars located near the Ground Station. Below is a photo taken by NASA's John Woods through the binoculars.
Cake and Coffee with Thule's FirefightersIt is important on an air force base for the fire crew to get to know any new planes or crews that come into their hangars. The Thule fire crew, a prestigious group made up of top firefighters with years of experience hailing from Denmark took tours of the P-3, met the NOAA crew and to make sure they got to know all of us, invited the teams for cake and coffee at the firehouse. They put out an amazing spread for us, gave us a tour of their facilities, and regaled us with stories of their experiences in the profession, working in Thule, and visiting family in Denmark. The partnerships created here in Thule are strong and watching that development happen is an exciting piece of the operational side of these science missions.
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