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[music] It's been two years since Operation IceBridge has flown

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over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet – one of the fastest-melting

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large masses of ice on the planet.

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Back then, the mission was based out of Punta Arenas, Chile, a great location if you 

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want to hit the West Antarctic and other science targets near the Antarctic Peninsula. 

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But for the first time last fall, the mission moved its 

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field site to the even more remote McMurdo Station, where they 

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completed the most-comprehensive long-range surveys ever performed of 

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several areas. For many on the team, it was a new experience 

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to actually touch down in Antarctica, and see firsthand

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things like Weddell seals basking in the sun, gigantic pressure ridges 

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of sea ice formed by the ice pushing against the coast

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the volcanic Mount Erebus, and Scotts cabin 

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with 100-year old seal flippers mummified by the dry Antarctic air.

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But front and center on the teams’ mind

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was the new complexity of this year’s challenge. There were new weather patterns 

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to decipher, new training exercises to prepare the pilots for landing

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on a floating sea ice runway, and a host of new regulations for operating

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out of McMurdo. Adding to the challenge: a runway 

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wasstarting to melt away as summer approached.

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Even with these challenges and a shortened schedule, the team was able to measure 

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the sea ice of the Ross Sea, along with land ice

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the Siple Coast, the Dome C / Lake Vostok region, 

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along the Trans Antarctic Mountains, and over Victoria Land.

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IceBridge demonstrated it could operate out of this new region and plans to go back 

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in 2015. But the network of NASA, university,

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and international partners who use IceBridge data also

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want to see how things have changed in the Antarctic Peninsula, on the Ronne Ice Shelf,

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and in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, so they're returning

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to operation out of Punta Arenas, Chile once again this year.

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[music]

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[beep beep, beep beep]