#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The North Pole 42 expedition is planned to be sent to the Arctic this fall. This will be the second expedition drifting on an ice floe in the last ten years, TASS reports.
As the director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) Alexander Makarov said, the first expedition of this kind started in 2022, it worked for almost a year and a half and officially ended on May 2. Scientists have collected large amounts of valuable information about climate and other processes in the Arctic, which is already being analyzed by specialists.
“In August the ship will be ready for its next voyage. The drifting station North Pole 42 will begin operation this fall”, he added.
The ice-resistant self-propelled platform North Pole, first deployed in the Arctic in 2022 will again be the base vessel for the expedition. It is designed for year-round expeditions in the northern latitudes of the Arctic Ocean, capable of arriving at the work site without the involvement of an icebreaker, drifting in the water area for up to two years and returning to port. The vessel is designed for 14 crew and 34 scientific personnel. The platform is equipped with an on-board scientific complex of 15 laboratories and a mobile field camp for placement on ice floes.
This unique vessel is specially built for expeditions in the drifting ice of the Arctic ocean; its design allows the vessel to be attached to a moving ice floe and begin to follow the sea current with it.
Let us recall that the world’s first polar research drifting Arctic station, North Pole 1, began work in May 1937. A total of 40 expeditions have been organized in the high latitudes of the Arctic. In 2013, the team from the drifting station SP-40 was evacuated, and the program was suspended for almost ten years. In 2022, the work of the drifting Arctic stations was resumed at a technologically new level – the expedition is carried out with the support of the North Pole LSP.
Earlier, we reported that regular tours to the North Pole are planned to be launched in 2024 – the routes will pass through Hatanga.
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Text: Irina Chernyshova, Photo: Olga Polyanskaya
