The finding of The Endurance is an amazing feat, as is how well it has been preserved. The DEFIANT team are on their way to the Weddell Sea, where the Endurance was lost 107 years ago. Although Shackleton’s goal was to cross Antarctica, he and his crew did a lot of research on the way. This early understanding has paved the way for projects like DEFIANT.
The buoys that will be deployed (from the PolarStern) in the coming days will drift with the ice, and take a similar route. The will experience similar conditions to the Endurance, but hopefully will not sink. We’ll have photos and videos in real time, so you can get a view of what the drift trapped in the ice might have been like. As these are unmanned drifting buoys, there won’t need to be a focus on finding food and fuel to survive, so they will be monitoring the ice, the ocean, and the atmosphere.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60662541
The DEFIANT team are on the PolarStern, which is about half way to the Weddell Sea from Cape Town.
