Much to Do with a Week to Go

Before arriving at the station, they stopped for one night at Perseus Intercontinental Runway to drop off equipment including insulation and cables to finish this season’s work upgrading the hangar into a place to welcome visitors overnight should the need ever arise.

The team stationed at Perseus will finish up the work to be done for the season and head back to PEA by the beginning of next week to prepare for departure. The hangar will be a much cozier place to be than it was at the start of the season!

The coast party then headed to PEA to drop off the components of the station’s new water treatment system. After preparing for the arrival of the water treatment system for weeks, the team of IPF engineers, technicians and plumbers at the station have finally started installing it.  With just over a week to go in the season, the team will make as much progress as possible in its installation before it’s time to leave.

With the season coming to an end soon, the team at the station has already started preparing the building for overwintering mode by levelling the annexes, packing up scientific instruments that were taking data during the season, preparing the station’s systems to be put in winter mode, and assembling protective covering on the station’s solar panels. In addition to doing all the regular end-of-season inventories of the food stock and mechanical spare parts is also mandatory, which is also a bit more work. Nevertheless, with one week left, they still hope to install additional solar panels on the ridge once the cargo has arrived.

With the first of two traverses completed, Alain’s team of four will start back to the coast this coming weekend to get the remaining containers and bring them to the station before the season ends next week.

The pressure is on but the team is up to the challenge!