The ITASC Catabatic Experimental Platform for Antarctic Culture (ICEPAC) is a mobile rapid-deployment IPY research station. ICEPAC is a solar and wind powered, zero-environmental impact, living and working unit capable of providing 6 crew members with the tools/resources needed to conduct joint or independent work in remote polar environments for periods of up to 30 days. For the current IPY season ICEPAC has been deployed at Vesleskaervet Nunatak in the Dronning Maud Land sector of Antarctica to enable collaborative field work between ICEPAC crew members and scientists based at the South African Antarctic station SANAE IV.
ICEPAC was designed by Pol Taylor (ARQZE, Chile), Thomas Mulcaire (South Africa) and Ntsikelelo Ntshingila (Swaziland) and built by Sets and Devices in Cape Town. ICEPAC is powered entirely on solar and wind power produced by the UMTHOMBO WOMLILO (“Well of Fire”in Zulu) power sled. Weather data and communications are provided by the GROUNDHOG solar and wind powered Automatic Weather Station and Communications unit. ICEPAC has a black polyester-webbing skin which acts as a solar collector, transferring surface heat produced through the absorption of the near-24 hour Antarctic summer sun into the interior of the station. In addition to traditional crystalline photovoltaic panels, the ICEPAC crew is testing prototype thin-film photovoltaic panels during the current expedition with a view to eventually covering ICEPAC with a flexible photovoltaic skin which will provide the station with all its energy and heat requirement.
The major collaborative research project at ICEPAC for the 0809 season is CATABATIC CELL, a field experiment to test the possibility of creating a transient habitable space in the blue ice beneath the snow using solar and wind power, a type of inverted igloo. The goal is to use submersible heating elements to produce a sub-glacial station architecture using only the materials and resources already present in Antarctica (ice, wind and sun). The water produced during the formation of the cell will serve as the water supply for the ICEPAC crew. If successful, the CATABATIC CELL experiment could provide a model on how to provide working and living conditions in Antarctica without the need to import massive amounts of materials, equipment and fuels in the construction and maintenance of field stations in Antarctica. Once the research at a particular site has been completed for the season, the sub-glacial habitation can be evacuated and the natural forces of Antarctica (wind, sun) will return the area to its original state. As this is the first season that the ICEPAC station has been deployed in Antarctica, the close proximity of SANAE base 1km to the West will allow the ICEPAC crew to evacuate to SANAE should any of the onboard energy, communications or life systems fail.
The 2008/2009 ICEPAC crew is Ntsikelelo Ntshingila (musician and producer, Swaziland, Expedition Leader), Erika Blumenfeld (artist, U.S.A., Director of The Polar Project), Lötter Kock (Space Physicist, South Africa, SANAE 48 Expedition Leader, South Africa) and Thomas Mulcaire (artist, South Africa, Director of ITASC). The core ITASC crew will be joined for shorter periods of collaborative field work by scientists and crew from SANAE base, including Ricardo Burgo Braga (Geographer, UFRGS, Brazil), Lorena Luiz Collares (Oceanologist, FARG, Brazil), Alfons Hug (curator, Germany, Director of the Goethe Institut, Rio de Janeiro), Sherry Bremner (Space Physicist, UKZN School of Physics, South Africa) and Ross Hofmeyr (Doctor, South Africa, SANAE 47 Expedition Leader, South Africa).
