The fourth Antarctic season of the Ukrainian research icebreaker Noosfera has ended. After almost five months of operation, the ship has returned to the Port of Cape Town (South Africa).
The Ukrainian National Antarctic Scientific Center announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
During this time, the icebreaker made a record five voyages to Antarctica, crossing the world's most turbulent waterway - the Drake Passage - 10 times.
In total, the icebreaker traveled more than 20,000 nautical miles (more than 37,000 km), a distance nearly equal to the length of the Earth's equator.
The icebreaker made the voyages to facilitate the rotation of the 29th and 30th Ukrainian Antarctic expeditions, to transport a seasonal research team to and from the Vernadsky Research Base (the Ukrainian Antarctic station) to work at the station during the Antarctic summer, and to conduct joint voyages with expeditions from the Antarctic programs of Poland, the United States, Spain, and the Czech Republic.
"These voyages, financed by these countries, provided Ukraine with more opportunities to meet the needs of its research program, in particular, to deliver additional cargo and specialists to the Vernadsky research base and to conduct several geological, oceanographic, and meteorological researches," the statement said.
Within the framework of the international project OCEAN: ICE, Ukrainian scientists have for the first time launched six "Argo floats," which are now actively collecting data on currents in the Southern Ocean.
Ukrainian scientists also conducted the first simultaneous radio sounding of the atmosphere from the Vernadsky Research Base and Noosfera to learn more about the processes of cloud formation and precipitation and their impact on the ocean, sea ice, and glacial melting.
"Despite Russia's full-scale invasion, we not only remain part of the global scientific community and continue our research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, but we have also added new areas of research and gained additional opportunities through increased international cooperation. Therefore, this season was a record-breaking one not only in terms of the number of voyages, but also in terms of collaborations with foreign partners," said Yevhen Dykyi, director of the Ukrainian National Antarctic Scientific Center.
Due to Russian aggression, the Noosfera cannot return to its home port of Odesa. Therefore, it is currently at its temporary base in Cape Town (South Africa).
