Latest flights and outlook

This morning Polar 5 and 6 took off really early. Scheduled take off was at 7:00 local time. The plan was to fly above the clouds and also at low altitude to do amongst other things some calibration patterns, albedo, cloud remote and in-situ measuring.

Flight under the clouds and above sea ice

Clouds near Svalbard

Unfortunately Polar 5 encountered too much icing and had to return to Longyearbyen after 3 hours. Polar 6 instead had a flight of more than 4 hours and returned succesfully.

Tomorrow, Polar 6 and Polarstern, which is passing Svalbard on the West, will have a first meeting. On Wednesday a joint flight of both aircraft to Polarstern is planned.