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Inuit Windsled Antarctic Expeditions

The Inuit Windsled concept has been extensively tested on the Antarctic continent, proving its unique potential to travel through some of the remotest and most inaccessible areas of the continent in a purely zero-emissions way.

  • 2005- 06

The Windsled achieved the first-ever navigation across the Antarctic continent, being the first zero-emissions vehicle to cross the continent. The expedition covered almost 4,500 km in 62 days through the Inaccessibility Region and reached the Antarctic Pole of Inaccessibility.

  • 2011-12

The Inuit Windsled returned to Antarctica with the mission to test its potential as a mobile scientific platform and to cross Antarctica through the South Pole on another route. Juan Pablo Albar was the first scientist to participate in a Windsled expedition, carrying out a pioneering scientific project. The Inuit Windsled covered 3,500 km in just 34 days.

 

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  • 2018-19

A new expedition took place, making the first Antarctic scientific expedition with the Windsled, ascending and traveling through the low-wind area of Dome Fuji, and covering 2,500 km in 52 days while carrying out 10 scientific projects.

After that expedition, a symposium took place in Madrid in 2019, where all the scientists who had participated in the Greenland and Antarctic expeditions gave their opinion about the scientific potential, which was very positive.

  • 2022

The possibility of incorporating the Windsled as clean scientific infrastructure was presented to the Spanish Polar Programme, and it was finally approved in 2022. The future of the Inuit Windsled in Antarctica lies in its use as an international scientific platform, promoted and led by the Spanish Antarctic National Programme, which will carry out biannual expeditions across the Inaccessibility Region in East Antarctica.

  • 2026-27

The first is scheduled for 2026–27, with the first Trans-Antarctic Expedition through East Antarctica, from Novo Area to the Pole of Inaccessibility and Vostok Station, ending in Concordia. The installation of an automatic weather station in the coldest place on Earth will be one of the priorities, proving the potential of the Windsled for the installation and maintenance of automatic weather stations in the remote interior of Antarctica.

Following this expedition, the equipment will winter in Concordia and then return to Novo Area through a different route via Dome Argus and Dome Fuji stations, completing a full circuit to be repeated on each route every four years.