Advancing Off-World Exploration Science for Moon and Mars Missions in antarctica
Advancing Off-World Exploration Science for Moon and Mars Missions in Antarctica
We’re delighted to finally be able to share to share more about an exciting project we’ve been working on for nearly two years.
Many of the expeditions and itineraries we put together involve long lead times, challenging logistics and a team of experts. Islands & Ice Travel’s first dedicated scientific expedition to Antarctica was no exception.
In January 2026, our GM, David Sinclair hosted a team of leading geoscience and space scientists and engineers in Antarctica together with Islands & Ice Travels partner, Ultima Antarctic Logistics. The team included experts in their fields including Brian Glass of NASA Ames Research Centre, Carter Fortuin of Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin Company, Fulbright Scholar, Cody Paige of Columbia University, and Dale Andersen of the SETI Institute together with geoscience experts from Fleet Space Technologies one of Australia’s fastest growing companies and explorer and environmental scientist, Tim Jarvis.
The team travelled via Cape Town to Dronning Maud Land where they deployed Fleet Space’s off-world seismic technologies alongside the TRIDENT-like drill, a regolith and ice drill destined for the Moon with NASA’s Artemis program, and distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) technology, to develop a methodology where high-resolution subsurface imaging and drilling operate as an integrated, data-driven system.
The cost and difficulty of transporting materials and life support systems to the Moon and Mars is prohibitive. To build permanent research stations on the Moon and Mars, it is necessary to find and figure out how to use local resources. By pairing real-time seismic sensing with off-world drilling systems that act as seismic sources, the team advanced the science to de-risk drilling decisions on the Moon and Mars with real-time subsurface intelligence. This approach enables lunar and martian mission planners to rapidly identify high-value drilling targets, de-risk infrastructure development, and increase the probability of finding high-grade ice, subsurface structures and other critical resources earlier in the mission cycle. For future off-world missions, such capabilities will be essential in reducing launch mass, conserving energy, and ensuring that each operation is informed by precise geological insight.
Testing was conducted at three sites in Dronning Maud Land. The first site was very close to Oasis Camp, the very comfortable base we use for our early season ‘Emperor Penguins & Drygalski Mountains’ expeditions situated in the largely ice-free Schirmacher oasis adjacent to the Nivl Ice Shelf. The team also conducted tests at Lake Untersee and on the Fenristunga (Wolf’s Tongue Glacier) adjacent to the west face of mighty Ulvetanna (the ‘Wolf’s Fang’) in the Drygalski Mountains, both extraordinarily beautiful destinations we have visited on past small group expeditions to Antarctica.
Together we demonstrated that we could bring together institutions, disciplines, and expertise from across the global space ecosystem to advance science in Antarctica at sites that closely resemble conditions that might be encountered on the Moon and Mars (space analogue sites).
Conducting science in Antarctica is expensive, logistically challenging and risky. Getting things done requires planning, patience, ingenuity and collaboration. We are proud to have played a leading role in organising this expedition together with our partners at Ultima Antarctic Logistics and are keen to use our knowledge and expertise to utilise existing logistics networks to facilitate science in Antarctica across a range of disciplines.
An expedition to Antarctica requires considerable forethought, planning and preparation. Islands & Ice Travel can assist with permitting, planning, organising transport both to and within Antarctica and hosting/guiding teams safely in Antarctica.
Contact us (scroll down) to inquire about your expedition, be it scientific, documentary film-making or a private expedition to Antarctica (land or sea).