Winter 1997 Expedition

Expedition Profile

From December 29, 1997 to January 22, 1998, eight members of the Robotic Antarctic Meteorite Search team visited the Patriot Hills region. The purpose of the expedition was to provide site evaluation, perform component technology tests and data collection, gain field experience, and search the area for meteorites.

The robotics agenda for this expedition involved experiments that will help evaluate technologies to be used on robots that will work in Antarctica and other high latitude regions in search for meteorites.

The technologies of interest were: communications, power, satellite based positioning, sky/sun based positioning, visual sensing, radar sensing, and spectrometry. The Experimental Results section describes the results of these investigations.

Field Logs

For details of the lessons learned, click here. For tips on meteorite searching, click here.

Experiment Results

Photo Gallery

Here are some overhead photos of the Patriot Hills / Nomad Valley / Independence Hills region taken by plane:
 
Overhead photo of the entire region. From left: the Independence Hills, the so called "Nomad Valley" where many operations will occur, and the Patriot Hills The "Nomad Valley."
And here are some pictures of the expedition site and nearby areas:
 
Patriot Hills main ice field and hills in the background A closer view of the Patriot Hills Patriot Hills as seen from "Nomad Valley."
Shelter for setting up instruments and processing data Field deployment of the spectrometer equipment Searching for meteorites on foot
Gathering at the ANI dining tent Shelter laboratory Sleeping quarters and generator shack
Finally, some images of the science done on the expedition:
 
Sensors showcased on this expedition Differential GPS transmitter Panoramic camera
Radar apparatus Solar collector experiment Satellite communications equipment
Spectroscopy calibration target and a meteorite sample in the foreground Rock sample Meteorite sample
 
Robotic Search for Antarctic Meteorites 1998
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Send comments, questions, or suggestions to Dimitrios Apostolopoulos.
This document prepared by Michael Wagner.