The Ukrainian icebreaker "Noosphere" has completed its fourth Antarctic season

The Ukrainian icebreaker "Noosphere" has completed its fourth Antarctic season

The Ukrainian research vessel "Noosphere" has completed its fourth Antarctic season and returned to the port of Cape Town in the Republic of South Africa after almost 5 months of work.

This was informed by the National Antarctic Scientific Center.

During this time, the "Noosphere" team conducted 5 voyages to Antarctica, and crossed the planet’s roughest Drake Passage 10 times. In total, the vessel traveled over 20,000 nautical miles (over 37,000 km), which is almost equal to the length of the Earth’s equator.

This journey was undertaken by our flagship to:

• facilitate the rotation of the annual 29th and 30th Ukrainian Antarctic expeditions, and also to deliver and return the seasonal expedition that carried out tasks at the "Vernadsky" station during the Antarctic summer;
• conduct joint voyages with Antarctic program expeditions from Poland, the USA, Spain, and the Czech Republic. These voyages were funded by the mentioned countries, providing Ukraine with more opportunities to support its own program, specifically for delivering additional cargo and specialists to "Vernadsky";
• carry out a series of geological, oceanographic, and meteorological studies. As part of the international OCEAN:ICE project, Ukrainian scientists for the first time launched 6 Argo buoys, which are actively collecting data on currents in the Southern Ocean. Also, for the first time, our scientists conducted simultaneous radio sounding of the atmosphere from "Vernadsky" and "Noosphere" to better study the processes of cloud formation and precipitation in our area and their impact on the ocean, sea ice, and glacier melting.

"We are proud that even under the conditions of Russia’s large-scale invasion, we not only remain a part of global science and continue research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, but also, thanks to increased international cooperation, have opened new avenues of research and gained additional opportunities. Thus, this season was a record not only in terms of the number of voyages but also in the amount of collaboration with foreign partners," said NANC Director Yevhen Dykyi.

The fourth season program was carried out by two Ukrainian captains from the Odesa region: Pavlo Panasyuk and Andriy Starish. Pavlo has successfully managed the "Noosphere" since its first Antarctic mission in 2022. For Andriy, this was his first season as captain, but he had previously proven himself as a senior captain’s assistant.

Due to Russian aggression, the "Noosphere" is currently unable to return to its home port of Odesa. Therefore, it will remain in the temporary location port of Cape Town.