ANITA Launch Attempt

Today, we went out to the pad for a launch of the ANITA payload. ANITA stands for Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna. Here is the link to their web site: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~anita/web/index.htm

The ANITA instrument is looking for the very specific radio emissions that are created when neutrinos hit the Antarctic ice. The structures that look like loud speakers on the payload are very finely tuned receivers that are looking for very short spikes of energy that would indicate the presence of the neutrino impacts.

ANITA on the pad

Each year, they have a contest to decorate the battery box for the payload. Here is this year's winning entry. Notice the figure inside the antenna on the far right.

Since this is a group from the University of Hawaii, they added a hula girl to their payload.