Between setbacks and success

Before the daily report we would like to draw your attention to the first media reports. The first one can be found on the platform 20min.ch and is in French. The second report was published by the Berner Zeitung. In both videos you can see our experiment - the interviews will follow.

Influenced by a few setbacks of the last days, we went up with the first gondola in order to solve as many problems as possible. After the daily setup we were very quickly on the exposed ice and ready for further tests. While we were being filmed and interviewed by other media, we found out that the coupling between our drill and the motor was too weak. The connecting piece on the drill slipped in the coupling when the resistance was too strong. We were able to solve the problem within 2 hours by using the keyway in the coupling.

With the new connection we were able to drill with very high torque. This allowed us to drill much deeper than before. Unfortunately one of the spikes broke off. It must have been incorrectly loaded due to multiple lifting and lowering. A MIT professor who works with us outside has commented on it with the following saying: Scientific success is based on setbacks. 

Even without the spikes we can and will continue to drill and extract more ice samples from the glacier. At the same time we try to repair the broken spike so that the tests can be carried out as usual. With the saying in mind we are looking forward to the next challenges we will have to face.