Vladimir Koshelev

INFORMBANK AGENCY

TRAVEL COMPANY "Polar Expeditions"

TRAVEL COMPANY "ULTRA-TRAVEL"

TRAVEL COMPANY "VIKAAR"

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HISTORY OF THE NORTH POLE DRIFTING STATIONS

2002 marks the 65th anniversary of the first Soviet North Pole drifting station, which was organized in the Arctic Ocean for the purposes of scientific research. Then, in the far away year of 1937, a heroic expedition of the so called "brave four" (I. D. Papanin, P. P. Shirshov, and E. K. Fedorov) marked the beginning of the planned research of the natural phenomena in the most inaccessible region in the Northern part of our Earth.


• On May 21, 1937 the North Pole-1 drifting station was inaugurated. Members of the expedition were dropped off by a high latitude expedition North, headed by O. Yu. Shmidt. Four airplanes TB-3 dropped off four persons and 10 tons of cargo to the ice floe.
• In the 1940s the research was interrupted due to the Second World War.
• Drifting Station North Pole-2, headed by M. M. Somov, operated from 1950 to 1951.
• Beginning with April 1954, drifting stations were a continuous, year round presence in the Central Arctic region, with at least two, and on some years three stations per year.
• On June 25, 1991 the last expedition, North Pole-31, has ended.
• The coordination and management of the North Pole drifting stations was carried out by the Institute for Arctic and Antarctic Research.
  
  
  Here are some statistics of the North Pole drifting stations:
  
  
• The total length of all North Pole expeditions is 29,726 days.
• The total distance of the drift is 169,654 km, with the average speed of 5,71 km/day.
• The total personnel of the North Pole expeditions - approximately 2,000 persons.
• The following types of airplanes landed on the ice floe of the North Pole stations: P-5, TB-3, PE-8, LI-2, AN-2, IL-12, TU-4, IL-14, AN-12, IL-18, AN-74, as well as the following types helicopters: MI-4, MI-6, MI-8, MI-26 (flight of A. N. Chilingarov).
• Cargo was dropped off by airplanes AN-12 and IL-76.
• About 800 breaks in the ice floe occurred on the stations.
• About 200,000 weather forecasts were performed.
• There were more than 3,000 deep water hydrological stations, which measured the temperature and the salt content of the water. Tens of thousands of tests were taken.
• The depths of the Arctic Ocean were measured over 40,000 times.
• More than 30,000 radiosondes were released.