Destroying LOFAR — Starting to remove the snow

Left with a mountain of snow on the collapsed HBA tile, it is now time to clear that snow away again, so that we can dissect the corpse of the deal antenna shell.


The first part of this is to shift the bulk of the ice-mountain. This was done using the 15-tonne digger.


This operation was carried out just as carefully as the initial placement. What we did not want to do was to pack the snow any further, nor generate additional damage by disturbing the now fragile tile pieces with movement from the digger bucket.


Once removed, the snow could be then safely dumped off the edge of the mound which will ultimately be the full HBA site.