From Raytheon Polar Services. U.S. Antarctic Program - overview of U.S. scientific research in the Antarctic. 2 - travel across the Drake Passage to the National Science Foundation's Palmer Station to study giant elephant seals and Adelie penguins, and to track global climate change. She said a backup plane at Rothera followed behind. It was the last leg of the return to Punta Arenas, Chile, a risky six-hour jaunt across the Drake Passage to the southernmost tip of South America with Dr. Ronald S. Shemenski onboard.
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The plane and its backup were expected to arrive in Punta Arenas just before 5 p.m. EDT, five days after the Twin Otter plane took off from there for the Rothera base on Antarctica's Adelaide Island, en route to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The extreme cold and darkness that characterize weather at the South Pole from late February until November make flights risky into Antarctica, the fifth-largest continent, its 5.4 million square miles the coldest, windiest and emptiest place on Earth. After reaching the Pole on Tuesday, the plane remained overnight in subfreezing temperatures on an icy runway and then made a more than eight-hour return flight Wednesday night to a safe landing at the Rothera base. After arriving in Punta Arenas, Shemenski is expected to get a medical checkup, remain overnight, and later take a commercial flight to the United States. There, he is to expected to undergo exhaustive medical treatment in Colorado.