Author: Admin

The traverse arrived on Saturday morning and since then there has been non?stop activity to unload the cargo and ferry the containers and generators at the depot site over to the main drill site. The traverse team had been driving round the clock in shifts to reach us but the terrain was difficult. With very soft snow it became impossible to tow the full load and so some of the items had to be left about 130km away from camp while the traverse brought the most essential items to site to allow us to begin setting up.

By Sunday evening  the main drilling site had been groomed and laid out and the traverse team took off to fetch the cargo that had to be left behind, as well as the fuel cache.

Work has begun in earnest today (Monday) to connect up the drilling system ready for testing and to prepare the instruments for their final test prior to the actual deployment. It is cold, but the wind is relatively calm and the contrast good.

When the remaining cargo arrives tomorrow, we will need to level the track in preparation for the two deployment containers and then drill a pilot hole and mount the wellhead. This forms the basis of the airlock system which allows us deploy everything in a sterile environment – an essential requirement for both the science and the environment.

One big outstanding task is to build a mound of snow ready to be melted into water to prime the drill system. We need approx 90,000 litres of water for the drill system to be operational, which is an equivalent volume of approx 270,000 litres of snow. That’s a mound approx 10m x 9m x 3m. All of that snow will need to be shovelled by hand into the melt tanks – guess what the science team’s first job will be!

Martin, Dom, David and Martyn have now left the UK and should be flying into Rothera tomorrow (Tuesday). Hopefully we will see them on site by the weekend. Their beds are made and the pillows plumped ready for them!