Rotation of annual expeditions took place at Vernadsky station. The 28th Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition is heading home after a year of work on the icy continent, and the 29th UEA team takes its place.
Yesterday, April 2, the official part of the rotation took place. The leader of the 28th UAE, Bogdan Gavrilyuk, gave Yurii Otruba, the leader of the 29th, a symbolic key to Vernadsky, and they also signed the station’s acceptance certificate. Then there was a change of blue and yellow flags on the flagpole.
Today, April 3, the participants of the 28th UAE left the station. Soon, the Ukrainian RV Noosfera will deliver them, as well as the participants of the seasonal expedition, to Chile. From there, polar explorers will travel to Ukraine by plane and land transport.
Let us remind you that there are 14 participants in the 28th UAE. For a year they carried out research in Antarctica in three main areas (meteorology, biology, geophysics) and maintained life support systems of the station.
In particular, they monitored the Earth’s magnetic field, the ionosphere, global thunderstorm activity, the ozone layer, weather indicators, and Antarctic wildlife, etc. It is important that due to improved communications and logistics, as well as the use of drones, the expedition was able to significantly expand the geography of field research at sea and conduct more complete observations of birds and mammals.
All the mentioned tasks will continue to perform the 29th UAE, which also has 14 participants.
Continuity is extremely important in most studies, as some of the data series at our station are the longest in Antarctica. Such data today enable scientists from all over the world to track how Antarctica has changed over the past 80 years and make predictions for the future.
Also, during the Antarctic summer, the technical and scientific work of a seasonal expedition at the station has been going on. Technical specialists managed to complete many works on modernization of the station, which were started before the full-scale war.
Thus, the main pier, built back in the British period, was completely replaced with a new one – safer and more convenient one.
The reconstruction of the second berth was also completed, the internal water supply system was replaced, and the grounding system of the main and auxiliary buildings was launched.
You can find more information about the work of the seasonal expedition in separate posts on our pages.
Photo by Oleksandr Matsibura.
