East (Antarctic Station)

History

2024: Launch of a new complex for ₽1 billion

in Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute early December 2024, he announced the commissioning of a new wintering complex with an area of ​ ​ 3 thousand square meters at the Vostok station in Central. To Antarctica Construction the facility, funded from the federal budget and funds, Leonid Mikhelson ended in a record five years.

According to TASS, a complex of five modules 140 m long and 17.5 m high was successfully tested during the polar winter. At an outdoor temperature of minus 80 degrees Celsius, comfortable plus 25 degrees is maintained indoors. The Russian government previously allocated more than 1 billion rubles for the transportation and installation of the new modular wintering complex of the Vostok Antarctic station.

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Director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute Alexander Makarov announced plans to use the station as a logistics hub for the study of the Earth's paleoclimate and the relict subglacial lake Vostok. In 2025, scientists will begin searching for ancient ice up to 1.5 million years old.

The station is creating a new meteorological complex and the only PC index measurement station in the southern hemisphere to track solar activity. The researchers will also monitor the UV index and collect space dust.

As part of experiments to ensure the life of future space missions, a phytotechnical complex for round-the-clock plant cultivation was launched at the station. Russian scientists are already growing greens, vegetables and watermelons, it is planned to cultivate forest berries.

Founded in 1957, Vostok Station is the only Russian intracontinental Antarctic station. It was here that in July 1983 the lowest air temperature on the planet was recorded - minus 89.2 degrees Celsius. The old station buildings, partially submerged under a three-meter layer of snow, will be completely replaced by a new complex.^[1]

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