Research buoy crossed over the North Pole
The northernmost Ice Tethered Platform (POPS) Damocles deployed on August 31, 2006 at about 82°N and 140°E, crossed over the North Pole area during the past week.
Damocles project Leader Jean Claude Gascard
Tara is now located at 87.10N and 125E approx. This is the northernmost location ever reached by a drifting ship crossing over the Arctic Ocean.
Today a DC3 (a canadian aircraft chartered by Damocles) reached Tara for the first time after 7 months since Tara started to drift across the Arctic Ocean. There were 5 passengers on board the DC3 for exchanging with personnels on Tara. Three members of the crew among 8 that wintered on board Tara will come back to Longyearbyen in few hours (4 hours flying time between tara and Longyearbyen).
The landing strip at Tara is 800m long and will need to be extended by a couple of 100 meters to allow landing and take off for the DC3 with full load capacity. We are still facing some problems on the Russian side to proceed for an air drop of kerosene, bulldozer and snowmobile at Tara that was delayed for more than one week up to now for purely administrative reasons.
On the Norwegian side we are hoping the recent problems raised by the non conformity of anticollision device installed on board the DC3 (TCAS1) with new regulation (TCAS2), will be solved as soon as possible. On April 13, 2007, there will be 20 Damocles scientists arriving in Longyearbyen and preparing all their gears for two weeks of hard work at Tara (until end of April 2007).
Mar 22, 2011
