The 26th Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition (UAE) departed for the Vernadsky Research Base on March 24.
"Its participants will spend about 13 months on the icy continent. The team is again the youngest among all the previous expeditions, but it is led by one of the most experienced Ukrainian polar explorers," as reported on the official website of the National Antarctic Scientific Center of Ukraine.
The head of the UAE will be the record holder for the number of winterings at Vernadsky – Bogdan Gavrylyuk, a geophysicist from Kharkiv. This will be the ninth year-round expedition for him.
Read alsoUkrainian Antarctic station seeing unexpected early return of penguins (Photo)In total, the 26th UAE will have 12 participants: seven scientists, a doctor, a cook, a diesel engineer, a system mechanic, and a system administrator. Of these, 11 men and one woman, biologist Oksana Savenko, who is going to winter for the second time (this is also a record, as no woman has ever wintered twice before).
The 26th UAE has the most representatives of Kharkiv region – three, while Kyiv and Chernihiv region have two from each. Vinnytsia, Zaporizhia, Poltava, Kyiv, and Lviv regions have one representative from each region.
Planned research within five main areas:
- Geospace research;
- Geology and geophysics;
- Hydrometeorology;
- Oceanography;
- Biology.
"Most of the expedition team left for Antarctica from Boryspil Airport today. Their journey will pass through Turkey, Brazil and Chile, where they will be quarantining for two weeks. Then they will get to the station by ship," it said.
