Overview
- The team reached Russia’s Bellingshausen station and plans to sail tonight to Smolensk (Livingston) Island to deploy the first single-person seasonal station.
- Crew members will spend about three days on installation before leaving Konyukhov there alone until mid-March.
- Research will measure microplastics in coastal waters plus air pollution with support from the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology and the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.
- The site will include a sleeping tent, a workshop tent and a small chapel tent, according to the expedition.
- A parallel Russian Geographical Society voyage on the schooner Eldorado left Ushuaia on November 18 to visit eight South Shetland islands and reassert original Russian toponyms, a roughly 1,700‑nautical‑mile route due to finish in early December.