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: The Antarctic Roadmap Challenges (ARC) project identified critical requirements to deliver high priority Antarctic research in the 21st century. The ARC project addressed the challenges of enabling technologies, facilitating access, providing logistics and infrastructure, and capitalizing on international co-operation. Technological requirements include: i) innovative automated in situ observing systems, sensors and interoperable platforms (including power demands), ii) realistic and holistic numerical models, iii) enhanced remote sensing and sensors, iv) expanded sample collection and retrieval technologies, and v) greater cyber-infrastructure to process ‘big data’ collection, transmission and analyses while promoting data accessibility. These technologies must be widely available, performance and reliability must be improved and technologies used elsewhere must be applied to the Antarctic. Considerable Antarctic research is field-based, making access to vital geographical targets essential. Future research will require continent- and ocean-wide environmentally responsible access to coastal and interior Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Year-round access is indispensable. The cost of future Antarctic science is great but there are opportunities for all to participate commensurate with national resources, expertise and interests. The scope of future Antarctic research will necessitate enhanced and inventive interdisciplinary and international collaborations. The full promise of Antarctic science will only be realized if nations act together.

Description: The Alfred Wegener Institute operates two stations in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. The German overwintering station Neumayer III is located on the Ekström Ice Shelf at 70°40’S and 08°16’W and is the logistics base for three long-term observatories (meteorology, air chemistry and geophysics) and nearby research activities. Due to the vicinity to the coast (ca. 20 km from the ice shelf edge), the Neumayer III Station is the junction for many German Antarctic expeditions, especially as the starting point for the supply traverse for the second German station Kohnen. The summer station Kohnen is located about 600 km from the coast and 750 km from Neumayer III Station on the Antarctic plateau at 75°S and 00°04’E. It was erected as the base for the deep-drilling ice core project, which took place between 2001 and 2006. Since then Kohnen Station is used as a logistics base for different research projects.

Description: The German research vessel Polarstern of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) was on a cruise through the Weddell Sea to the Ronne Depot at the edge of the Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf (cruise PS96) between December 2015 and February 2016. The main objective of this cruise was to supply a joint expedition between AWI and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) on the ice shelf. Satellite imagery from the German satellites TerraSAR‐X (TSX) and TanDEM‐X (TDX) was used during the cruise to derive sea ice information at a high spatial resolution. This was very useful, since the Weddell Sea region is characterised by a perennial sea ice cover, especially in the southern portion close to the ice shelf edge. Such conditions are challenging to vessel navigation and safety.

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.

Description: The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging technique enables the mapping of the Earth’s surface independent of weather and light conditions, which makes it a suitable instrument during Antarctic winters. Since the early 1990s, imaging radar techniques have been established in polar sciences. The imagery can be used to support Antarctic wintering staff; e.g. to detect crevasses or other surface features. To do so, the radar backscattering behaviour of homogeneous (undisturbed) and heterogeneous (crevassed) areas is used to map crevasse fields or ice edges. A semi‐automatic technique of surface feature detection can help to process the data more rapidly. Nevertheless, an experienced observer is crucial in emergency cases.