TSI Seminar

The Launch and Recovery of HELIX - an Arctic Adventure

David Hanna

McGill

The High Energy Light Isotope eXperiment (HELIX) payload is designed to measure the 'clock isotope' Be10 in order to provide a measure of the production and propagation of cosmic rays in the Milky Way galaxy. Built around a one-tesla superconducting magnet, the device is essentially a particle-physics experiment deployed at an altitude of 40 km. HELIX had its six-day maiden flight from Kiruna, Sweden to Ellesmere Island, in the Canadian Arctic, in early June of this year. I was lucky enough to participate in both the launch and recovery efforts.

In this talk I will go over the scientific motivation for HELIX and a description of the detector. I will then go over the events related to the launch and the recovery, one of the most northerly recoveries made so far.