At the beginning of November, the 35th Chinese Antarctic expedition (南极科考队) set off for the polar region. This time, one of their main tasks is to build China's first permanent (永久的) Antarctic airport, Science and Technology Daily reported.
There are more than 20 airports in Antarctica, according to Global Times. But none of them belong to China. China's polar plane Xueying 601 has to take off and land at Russian airports.
The new airport will help Chinese aircraft take off and land in the South Pole. This will make it easier to transport scientific equipment and do research, Zhang Xia from the Polar Research Institute of China told Global Times.
In order to be environmentally friendly, the airport will be small, said Sun Bo, leader of the research team. It is much smaller than the usual airports in our cities.
However, this doesn't make it easy to build the airport.
The site of the airport is an ice cap 28 kilometers away from Zhongshan Antarctic Station, Xinhua noted. An ice cap is a thick layer (层) of ice. It covers the land like a quilt. But this "quilt" is always moving Scientists have to find the slowest-moving part of the cap. You can hardly notice the movement of the ice in this area.
The next problem is the snow. The snow on the ice cap can be very thick. Also, it is as soft as cotton, which makes it hard to build a runway for airplanes. Scientists have to use a snow blower (吹雪机) to get rid of the snow on top of the cap. Them, they compact (压紧) the rest of the snow with a road roller-like machine. This way, the snow will be strong and hard enough to build a runway on top of.
