Three Russians set a world record by parachuting from Earth’s stratosphere to the North Pole last week in a mission that also served as a test of a new communications system for use in the Arctic, an organizer of the operation told Reuters.
Mikhail Korniyenko, Aleksandr Linik and Denis Yefremov dropped from an Ilyushin-76 plane, flying at an altitude of 10,500 meters, and free-fell for about two and a half minutes before opening their parachutes 1,000 meters above the ground. Their descent was captured on a stunning video.
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All three suffered some frostbite on their cheeks, despite wearing heated masks, said organiser Nikita Chaplin. As they fell at a speed of more than 300 km per hour, the air temperature, which was around -50 degrees Celsius, felt like -70 degrees Celsius.
They landed near the Russian polar base of Barneo, where Chaplin said they were able to power a server using diesel generators and link up with a satellite. The equipment had been dropped earlier from a lower altitude.
Communications in the Arctic are likely to become more important as countries, including Russia, the United States and China, compete for resources, trade routes and military advantage.
Chaplin said the Russians were able to send data through an experimental system, although he admitted that at this point the system could not compare with the capabilities of Iridium Communications Inc, which is based in the United States and offers coverage of both poles of the Earth.
“Of course our solution is something of a pilot, but we still managed, from our server, to connect to our satellite and transmit data,” said Chaplin, who is a partner and co-founder of Russian provider RUVDS.
“Of course it’s not Iridium yet, but we’ve taken some small steps in that direction and that was our goal – to see if it’s realistic to build a low-cost solution to access a satellite from a computer.”
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