The Council of Administrators of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) has published the report which includes the initiatives presented at its last symposium, attended by the The WindSled Project, represented by its designer and promoter, Ramón Larramendi. COMNAP, an international organization created in 1988, is made up of those responsible for the coordination and planning of Antarctic activities in each country to improve practices in the management of scientific research. Thus, here, the eco-vehicle was presented as a good, clean option for the continent.
Ice core extraction near Concordia station
IPICS Scientists (International Partnership in Ice Core Sciences), who want to reach old ice in Antarctica (1.5 million years back) in the next decade, are currently preparing several international projects. The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) is working in the same line, and is already designing a mobile scientific station for the 2020-2021 campaign, which would be some 1,100 kilometers inland from the Casey research station, near DOME C, the Franco-Italian Concordia station and EPICA. Among the campaign routes they are studying: a historical route from the Casey research station to Law DOME plateau and a transversal route to Vostok station, considering others as well. They would carry 320 tons on board between food, samples and ice cores to operate a thousand kilometers inland with a team comprised of 16 people.
Another large expedition campaign was presented at COMNAP, in this case by China: the China Antarctic Research Expedition (CHINARE) would begin at the Zhongshan station in eastern Antarctica to end at the Ross Sea region. “Such a project is beyond the capacity of a single nation to address, so CHINARE tries to foster international cooperation and obtain support. Its objective is also to contribute to the understanding of the East Antarctic ice sheet with a platform to launch scientific research in the area. For this they have designed a plane called “Snow Eagle 601” equipped with skis that performs air gravity and magnetism measurements, laser altimeter data acquisition, aerial photographs…thus allowing ice thickness measurements. Since 2015, this Snow Eagle has undergone 68 flights, collecting geophysical data from more than 118,000 sites in East Antarctica aside from being the first DC3 aircraft landing at the Kunlun station in China.
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https://www.comnap.aq/SiteAssets/SitePages/AGM2018/COMNAP%
20Symposium%20program%20v%2020%20April%202018%20FINAL.pdf
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https://www.comnap.aq/Publications/Comnap%20Publications/Proceedings%
20of%20the%20COMNAP%20Symposium%202018%20Facilitation%20of%
20Internationally%20Collaborative%20Antarctic%20Science%20PDF.pdf