(Adrian, Bubba, Corey, Dale, Fabrice, Greg, Jeff, Mitch, Sebastian, Vincent, and many others who've helped with the building of this assembly over the last few months/years!)

The Advanced LIGO Project's FIRST BSC ISI Assembly has been completed, initially tested, moved from the Staging Building and installed in an LVEA Test Stand!

Bright and early (7am!), the SEI crew began the task of removing LHO's BSCISI#1 Assembly. Before the actual move, lots of activity commenced to get the task going (i.e. gathering lifting hardware & installing, clearing out space for the move, disconnecting cables, etc.).  Once everything was ready to go, the team & the job went like clockwork.  The Assembly was lifted and lowered on to Storage Container platform.

The Storage Container we used for this move is for a HAM ISI Assembly, and was retrofitted for the BSC.  One item which couldn't be fixed was top of the enclosure (it is too small for  the behemoth known as the BSC ISI!).  So we used several C3 Covers to cover the Assembly, and then used plastic wrapping to cover the gap between the covers and the platform.  Once we were happy the system was sealed up, it was rolled out a few feet with our large mechanized pallet jack.  For the next move, Bubba and "Big Red" (the large capacity forklift) took over and carried our heavy load up the hill and over to the LVEA.

The Assembly was then rolled into the LVEA via the big pallet jack and placed in a spot for pick up with the main crane (here the Assembly was partially unwrapped to regain access to the lifting gear; it was then lifted off the Platform).  The system was lifted and traveled over a few beamtubes and made its way to the waiting Test Stand in the LVEA's West Bay.

A minor issue was noticed here:  we did not have correct studs for the Test Stand!  The retrofit plate used on the Platform used coarse-threaded rods to capture the ISI.  We should have used fine-thread, because fine-threaded rods/bolts are used for all of our Test Stands and the actual Support Tubes.  Since we had a load in the air and it was not in a cleanroom, we decided to lower the Assembly on the Test Stand without the threaded rods in place.  (as I type, correct threaded rods have been found and the team is now re-lifting the Assembly, installing rods, and dropping the ISI on these rods on the Test Stand).

All of this activity went pretty smoothly, and was done well before lunch!

I've attached a few photos from this activity (via my phone) to this entry.  I also took quite a few videos with my phone, but since they are too big for the ALog, I uploaded them to ResourceSpace.  They are located here:

https://ligoimages.mit.edu/?c=633

Our cinematographer Dale also took tons of photos and videos as well, and I'm sure his work will be posted soon as well.

:::::  Note:  So from about April 11th, we went from having parts in the kitchen-----> Today June 30th, where we had an Assembly on the Table!  :::::