No engine, no fuel, just kites: on Sunday a four-person team led by the Spanish adventurer Ramón Larramendi left Spain for one of the most unusual journeys planned this polar season. Their goal is to cross some 3,400 kilometres of East Antarctica on the Windsled, a self-designed vehicle pulled by giant sails, carrying 16 research projects into parts of the continent where almost nobody has ever taken measurements.
The route starts near the Russian station Novolazarevskaya in Queen Maud Land, where the sled has spent more than seven years dismantled and buried in snow since its last trip ended in February 2019. From there the crew wants to pass the Pole of Inaccessibility at about 3,700 metres altitude and Vostok, the coldest spot ever measured on Earth, before ending the trek at Concordia, the French-Italian research base on Dome C. The team has planned 80 to 85 days on the ice and hopes to be home by early February.
The convoy, roughly 15 metres long and inspired by Inuit sledges, can reach up to 80 km/h when the wind is right. Solar panels feed the 250 kilograms of scientific instruments on board, which makes this, according to the team, the first traverse of Antarctica that is entirely emission-free. More than a tonne of cargo, including freeze-dried food and spare crossbeams, has already been sent to Cape Town, the last stop before a logistics flight onto the ice.
The science on board is varied. Virologists from the Severo Ochoa molecular biology centre in Madrid want to filter the air for emerging viruses such as the H5N1 bird flu, using portable sequencers in the cabin. Other groups will look at dust and pollution on the snow, and a university team will study how the crew copes with extreme cold, as a test case for future Moon and Mars missions. The crew of three Spaniards also includes a Polish scientist based at the University of Maine in the US.
Even for Larramendi, a veteran of many polar trips, this one is new territory: he says no previous Windsled journey carried this much cargo or went on this long.
