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After the successful offloading of the Mary Arctica and the Shirase at Crown Bay, the Belgo-Japanese expedition departed on its traverse. Within the framework of the collaboration with JARE 51 (Japanese Antarctic Research), the Belgian BELARE team provided the Japanese expedition with logistical support.During the traverse, the convoy faced white-out conditions and large crevasse zones, before passing by the former Japanese Asuka Station that was abandoned in 1991. This return to the past was a very emotional moment for those like Professor Tsushiya Noriyoshi, leader the JARE 51 expedition, who knew the base while it was still in use.On January 2nd, the convoy finally reached the research site of the Japanese team at Balchenfjella Glacier, where the Belgians left a Prinoth with a driver and a mechanic to help with moving material.

This short film travels back in time to the first Princess Elisabeth construction phase of 2007-2008. Find out what the conditions were like at the Utsteinen base camp and see how innovative one can get when left with the bare minimum.

After having witnessed perpetual sunlight, Antarctica is now showing its true nature. The time has come for a good storm. When the wind blows, snow gets in through the slightest crack, making the base camp vulnerable. It is important to clear the place up, to protect the tents and to shelter the lightest equipment so that the storm doesn't destroy everything.

The International Polar Foundation (IPF) and global satellite operator SES S.A. have successfully completed the installation and tests of the SES satellite ground station in Antarctica.A crew of SES specialists joined the BELARE team to run tests and launch the operations. The new infrastructure will now make a significant contribution to scientific research by offering real-time data transfer from Antarctica, and will allow the Princess Elisabeth Station to be monitored online, thus ensuring best efficiency from the micro smart grid capabilities in energy management.

Vinciane Debaille is a Research Associate at the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS). This year, she will head to Antarctica to head the SAMBA project with her colleague Steven Goderis (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). As was the case for the JARE 51 project from last year, the aim of the SAMBA project will be to bring back meteorites to Belgium for study.

This video goes over the different steps of the construction of the Princess Elisabeth Station. The International Polar Foundation would like to thank MDW Productions for making this movie in a very short timeframe.

Led by an expedition team from the Princess Elisabeth Station, the SAMBA crew with Steven Goderis (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and Vinciane Debaille (Université Libre de Bruxelles), as well as their counterparts from the Japanese National Institute of Polar Research, reached their base camp on the Antarctic Plateau. Join them on their ski-doos as they cross the blue ice to find meteorites.

The scientists, who were supposed to arrive in Utsteinen on January 27th, ended up arriving later than expected due to the bad weather. The weather conditions in Utsteinen have brought serious trouble to the inhabitants of Utsteinen; the building of the southern scientific platform had to be postponed. The weather, along with the strong winds, surprised the team which is not used to heavy rainfalls in Antarctica.

Zorigto Namsaraev is a microbiologist and works as a researcher-scientist at the Center for Protein Engineering at the University of Liège (Belgium). In the framework of the BELDIVA project, he studies one of the few indigenous life forms in Antarctica known as cyanobacteria.