URL: https://www.desy.de/news/news/archive_before_2010/2006/partphys_1602/index_eng.html
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IceCube Season ended successfully
IceCube installation team with DESY members Bernhard Voigt (2nd from left) und Holger Leich (5th from left).
With the last plane leaving the South Pole, the season for the IceCube installation ended on February 15.
In this Antarctic summer it was possible – after initial obstacles – to deploy eight “IceCube strings” in 2450-meter-deep holes, each one equipped with 60 photomultipliers. With these measuring devices it will be possible to map neutrino interactions in the Antarctic ice. Moreover, 24 so called IceTop tanks were installed that are used to measure air-shower particles. Particularly in the weeks before the end of the season, the drilling and installation speed reached a rate that is necessary for the scheduled installation of 14 to 16 photomultiplier strings per season. This is a great success!
Including the components installed in 2005, 9 strings and 32 tanks are now in operation,in total 604 optical modules, 118 of them from 220 assembled at DESY so far. They are forming the basis for the first year of data taking with the IceCube section installed up to now. A combination of the 9 IceCube strings with the existing AMANDA detector
already now achieves a duplication of sensitivity.
