Description: The season ANT-Land 2018/19 is scheduled for the period from 31 October 2017 until 28 February 2019. Most of personnel will be flown into the Antarctic and back via the air link from Cape Town within the frame of Dronning Maud Land Air Network (DROMLAN). Ship calls are scheduled for RV POLARSTERN between 5th and 7st January 2019, to supply the majority of cargo for NEUMAYER STATION III and aircraft operations. A further ship call is MARY ARCTICA between 17th and 18th January 2019. Logistics will focus on two periods of lifting of the station. Furthermore a construction team will be onsite for maintenance of the station facilities. In the vicinity of NEUMAYER STATION III geophysical, glaciological, geological, biological and atmospheric projects are planned during the summer season. Medical studies of the Berlin Centre for Space Medicine (ZWMB) and University of Munich (LMU) will be continued and extended by the station staff during the winter period. In parallel, station facilities will be used to operate the Basler BT-67 aircraft POLAR 6. The regular weather forecast service (AWI/DWD) will be provided to all aircraft operations within the Dronning Maud Land region, in particular as a contribution to DROMLAN. KOHNEN STATION will be visited by the participants of six scientific projects and maintenance work such as lifting up the station and construction work. A traverse to KOHNEN STATION including supply goods will start from NEUMAYER STATION III will start mid of November. The DALLMANN LABORATORY at Base CARLINI (Argentina) will be opened at the beginning of November 2018. It is operated in cooperation with the Instituto Antártico Argentino (IAA). During the season 2018/19 German and international scientists (one scientific group) will work at the Potter Cove and the station area.

Description: Provision of fresh produce to winter‐over Antarctic crews is a challenge. The fact that at least 46 different greenhouses or plant production systems have existed at one time or another in Antarctica1 demonstrates the desire to produce food in situ, even in this harsh environment. The EDEN ISS project will deploy an advanced plant growth system to Neumayer Station III. In addition to providing winter‐over crews with fresh produce, the project aims to advance the technology readiness and operations techniques of space‐based plant growth systems. The EDEN ISS “Mobile Test Facility” is designed to operate from two 20‐foot shipping containers. These containers will be mounted upon an elevated platform situated approximately 300 metres south of Neumayer Station III. The facility will be composed of three distinct sections:  A cold porch  A Service Section, housing the bulk of the facility subsystems as well as a refrigerator‐sized growth rack specifically designed to advance microgravity‐based growth systems  A Future Exploration Greenhouse providing the main plant production area of the facility

Description: For 36 years, the German national Antarctic programme of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) has had experience with predeployment training for winter‐over personnel. The wintering teams started in the 1980s with five people, but soon, after two years, the group was extended to nine persons. The nine person team is still the norm today. The team includes two geophysicists, one meteorologist, one atmospheric chemist, one medical doctor, one IT engineer, two other engineers, and one cook. The first two teams went through a very simple structured training, only for a short period and mostly dealing with their future tasks. There was no real idea of team building prior to the deployment. The only training that focussed on team building and confidencebuilding measures was the mountain course starting in 1984 and still practised to the present day. It is also one of our most safetyrelated courses. A first change in the training programme was made at the end of the 1990s. We developed a more detailed, structured, and specialised training concept, which includes courses for the entire team as well as separate ones for the different specialist areas, concerning science, technics, and medicine. Moreover, we change the programme, as some of the courses have been ineffective and we have added other more appropriate ones. The complete predeployment period in Bremerhaven takes three to five months,from the beginning of August till mid‐November, and focusses equally on team‐building measures and training on the job. We do not have psychological tests for evaluation; our approach is to derive from the practical side to see how the team’s interactions and working together develop. At the beginning of this period everyone gets a detailed schedule listing all information on the training programme. This schedule is subdivided into courses for the entire team and special training onthe‐ job for engineers, scientists, and the medical doctor. The training system should also give the winter‐over personnel the feeling of safety, which is also to be considered a main concern.

Description: Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) has been running a permanent research station in Antarctica for more than 35 years. From the very beginning great value has been placed on appropriate medical equipment for the hospital and optimal health care for the winterover personnel. For a long time it has been the aim to use telemedicine in remote areas or on board vessels or on stations in Antarctica.