Our next speaker in this session is Charlton Clark who's general manager of Antarctic operations and
safety at AAD where he's responsible for getting people and freight to and from Antarctica,
keeping our expeditioners safe, resupplying the stations but most importantly ensuring
the program delivers the science. And I thought I might actually share an anecdote of my first
experience in the Australian Antarctic Program at Casey station earlier this year. It was a really
wonderful time to be down there and immersed in the science but what became critically clear to
me during that stay was that it doesn't matter how perfect our science program is designed,
if Charlton can't deliver it. So no pressure Charlton but we really hope that you're going
to be able to deliver the incredible science that we've heard about today.
Charlton's worked in a diverse range of roles over the last 20 years focused on
national- international marine and Antarctic issues. Thank you.
Thanks Nicole and good afternoon everyone. It's been a real pleasure as a simple logistician
who studied political theory of all things to listen in today and be inspired by the
presenters and I suppose we don't do operations in Antarctica for its own sake it's with purpose
and today I think, if ever there's an opportunity to see that purpose of why
we do what we do to support our science community, it was a great example of that.
So we have the task of developing and delivering support for our scientific efforts in Antarctica.
We train, we clothe, equip, we transport people to Antarctica. We get them to where they need to go.
By Ship, by air, by vehicle, over snow, across the water occasionally and importantly we co-design
that program with the scientists to ensure that we're delivering what they need to deliver.
That's a real challenge because Antarctica is a unique environment and today I think
we've had a a series of presenters and I hate to say there's actually been a
real fraud can committed. This is coming from a political scientist, academic fraud of course,
that fraud you might pause and reflect is, every image that's been shown today is a beautiful day.
The weather's been perfect, the sky is blue. There might have been a couple of presentations
that had maybe a streak of cloud in it but there definitely wasn't the impression of minus 25 and
55 knots of wind or a ship getting stuck in ice or a blizzard coming or a rolling low pressure system
that continues every three days continually. So much of the work we do is disrupted and the
disruption is in a high consequence environment. So we plan for things as best we can but we have
capabilities to respond as things change. And we're fortunate we've got a remarkable group
of people both station leaders, voyage leaders, field leaders that can support our teams as best
they can and when something goes wrong we've got the medical support and incident support to keep
the program on the go. Ordinarily our job is to take people to Antarctica. We can't do that today.
It'd be lovely to get a plane out here at Canberra airport, fly down. The team at Wilkins Aerodrome
are about to commission up the runway, so much of the footage today is really some of what we
do. I'll talk through that to say this is how we do things at the moment but then importantly
touch on the future and some really exciting capabilities that are coming down the line
that go to the heart of how we're going to support science for not just the next two,
three years but for the decade to come. So that's the aim of the the next 15 minutes.
So the program's growing in scale and last year we saw three ships in operation, we'll do that
again this year. So the amazing RSV Nuyina sadly is going to be joining the program later than
we hoped this season but a cargo ship and another Icebreaker. And just gives a sense of the scale of
the program when we're now transporting thousands of tons to Antarctica to rebuild stations over
time, to support our science and importantly over the last 12 months in particular transport huge
amounts of cargo for the million year ice core trip that I'll cover on in just a few moments.
Much of our work is about transporting energy to and from Antarctica. Millions of litres of
fuel and it's one of the great challenges we face over the coming decade of how do
we decouple our operations from that fuel source. It presents environmental risk but
it also it's just a really inefficient way of operating in Antarctica because we create
a pyramid to get someone to do that science and you know the fantastic work that's going to be
happening with the million year ice core, the logistic pyramid to make that happen
is hundreds of thousands of liters of fuel to make that happen. So one of our big challenges.
As I said the team is just starting to fire up Wilkins Runway
this season and typically each season we operate about 20 flights to and from the continent,
transporting people in an Airbus or heavy Cargo in a C-17 aircraft. And they're both
those capabilities have been a game changer. The next step change which couples with future
capabilities is our capacity now to airdrop things into Antarctica. So projects that are on the cards
in the coming seasons to take a just one example, the Denman terrestrial program in the Bunger
Hills. We've now got multiple ways of delivering the cargo, the equipment, scientific equipment,
especially that stuff that won't break, to the field to get it in place where it needs to be.
And that's complemented by smaller aircraft, both our helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to move
people around the continent. But we've only got a very small window to get this done. Typically,
for those who are familiar you'll know that really the summer periods starts in November
and at best we're through to the end of February or early March. We've got to compress as much as
we can and extract every bit of value out of the program during that short period.
So for big challenges like the traverse which our Ops team will deliver the drilling Team 1,200
kilometers Inland up to an elevation of three kilometers. They've got very narrow windows to
get that work done. So we train and prepare the best we can back here in Hobart we've got some
really good teams down in Antarctica at the moment getting ready. They've done some trial work and
you know this is science on a grand scale. The capacity to move and create an inland station
is a capability we haven't had for decades and it's fantastic to see that come back into place.
We operate our stations. They're getting old. There's an exciting program to modernize those
over the coming years and that leads to why some of our strategy now is not just to get ready for
the rebuilding of those programs but how do we maintain the scientific effort during that
period and that's what I really want to touch on in the second half of this presentation.
So over time amazing capabilities to upgrade our stations, that legacy of the 80s and 90s.
They're at their time where they need rebuilding. They'll be a different type of station going into
the future rather than being a destination in themselves, far more a transit point to get
scientists to where they need to be or where they want to be. Jonny Stark touched earlier today on
the 36 ice free areas in East Antarctica . 33 of them are not near the Antarctic stations that we
operate from at the moment or our reach and access to them is only limited. So we are re-looking at
how we run our Logistics and operations to not just keep those stations operating, to rebuild
them over time but de-couple as much as we can during that period our support for science to
ensure that we can not just maintain but increase the scientific effort over the next two, five and
ten years to get scientists where they need to be. Part of that strategy includes looking at a range
of new capabilities and if the motion catches up I'll get to those capabilities in a moment.
You'll see that at the moment, this is current state of moving people not just by air but between
our stations by fixed-wing aircraft. We've only really got limited capacity to do that the basilar
aircraft we use we've seen heaps of footage today they're approaching their 80th birthday. It's time
to look for new capabilities. Part of that is this year we'll be introducing new twin engine
helicopters and in recent government announcements we've now got the capability to bring online,
medium lift helicopters. And the concept that was demonstrated here is those medium lift helicopters
deployed from Nuyina or in the future other cargo ships or ships that are able to support aircraft
operations, give us the capacity throughout East Antarctica to deploy new summer field
stations and those are scalable stations but up to 40 people in the field. And what we're
trying to do is invert the pyramid. At the moment that pyramid of support staff to scientists is a
very broad base with only a very small number of scientists at the point of that pyramid. The
model we're looking at for those summer field and air-deployable stations is really something around
40 people in total but about 15 support staff and 25 scientists. So it really changes the model.
It's still early days but the work we're doing at the moment of setting up the Denman terrestrial
program is really a pilot study for that and similarly the Traverse work hopefully will
lead to in the future, the capability for further future Inland stations and
of course science will dictate where they are. Our job is to try and make it happen
So these capabilities that are coming down the line. I've talked about the new medium
lift helicopters. So to paint a picture the squirrels or B3 squirrels we use,
typically over extended ranges move about 750 kilos of equipment or people at any one time.
We're looking at air frames that will have the capability to move about two and a half
tons and the government funding is for four of those so that's a real game changer. We're more
than likely still going to require the odd squirrel or two for the local area
taxi around the Vestfold Hills or for other work that requires that sort of capability.
With fixed-wing aircraft our other contracts come up over the next 12 to 18 months and we're looking
at what are the future platforms that are going to support our science into the future. What is
the science requirement for arrays whether they're towed or fixed? Fixed to platforms
right through to where do we want to go and what do we need to do? So in the next 12 months we'll
be defining that and going back out to the market. Similarly we've got this amazing capability at
Wilkins Aerodrome we can operate aircraft up to the size of C-17 there. There's a question
now what's the next capability that we might use into the future for passenger movement as well.
On the shipping front we've we've touched a fair bit on Nuyina. The team's busy at the
moment getting Nuyina ready. You would be aware that unfortunately it's got some technical issues
that have seen it delayed in Singapore. These are manufacturing issues that are currently
being rectified but this season we'll see other ships being used. Two of them have been in the
images we saw earlier. But into the future what we're trying to do is decouple our logistics. So
the resupply of our stations both dry cargo and fuel to maximize the time available for Nuyina
to do science. So whether that's marine science in the Southern Ocean or to skirt the entirety
of East Antarctica to deploy scientists to the field and use the ship as a floating platform.
We're optimistic that we can find some other vessels within the budget that we've been given
that will really again, de-couple us logistically but also not put all our eggs in one basket.
We're going through a massive program of upgrading our communications and this is
not just to look after our people and keep them safe but also to provide that
connectivity for people in the field, our scientists, our support staff,
so we can look after them in a contemporary way. Some of our communication systems,
although they're good the modern expeditioner gets a bit frustrated with buffering Netflix or
when WhatsApp doesn't work so again, we still don't know some of the benefits that will come
from that upgrade to the communication systems that might provide capabilities for science.
Lastly just touching again on the summer field stations and that decoupling of
our science support from being in fixed locations to it to an extent.
The idea of being able to make those deployable by helicopters or by Traverse really provides
an opportunity to the scientific community to set the agenda of where do you want to
go. We're really trying to remove that constraint of having everything deployed
through stations so Nicole and the team with the decadal plan, with the TNI technology
looking at remote systems. There's a whole opportunity coming together now to redefine
where we want to go and what we want to do throughout the entirety of East Antarctica.
One aspect and you know it's the major program for this season, the traverse. I just don't want to
gloss over the challenge that's ahead of us. And this is not a market, as a it's a bit of an
insurance policy if something goes wrong. But it's a remarkable undertaking, you know. At Dome C at
the moment, Tas, I think we're talking minus 55, minus 56. It's at three kilometers of altitude.
1200 kilometers over an unproven route and we've used the best satellite data,
we've used the best scientists to advise on how to get there and how to operate but it's
a Monumental challenge. So this year, pilot year hopefully we'll get everything up there I'm sorry,
not hopefully, we will get everything up there we just need the weather to do its part. We've
got some fantastic people, some great field leaders and scientists underway but it's just
it rolls off the tongue it's only 1200 kilometers at 11 kilometers an hour
for three weeks at minus 35. But I'm sure they're going to do a fantastic job.
When they get there and this fits in with this future operating model that provides
greater capability, it's a diagrammatic of what is a traverse supported field camp is. So we're
not talking just polar pyramids and dome tents to support science. There's actually quite a
robust capability to support the acquisition of data, keeping people safe and even small field
laboratories that allow some analysis on site. Again the ratio of support to science I think is
a really good balance and again over the next year or two working with TNI, working with the science
community I think that's a real game changer. The ones that will be deployed by traverse are
a bit heavier, they're slower obviously but we're trying to come up with a scalable option that we
can reach out to the scientific community and then work as the scientific programs
and projects are being designed to come up with options that work best for everyone.
As I said pilot program this season in the Denman glacier that is with proven
technology. We're looking to use some newer and more renewable energy sources in those camps but
again I think they're going to be getting back to some of that big multi-disciplinary science
in the areas we want to get to. All the ops team are ready to provide that capability.
A final shot, just one of the new helicopters that got brought out of the box the other day.
These are a small change in the direction we're heading. They provide only a little
increase on what the current air frames do but they do provide an opportunity to
do science and search and rescue in a slightly different way. So it's a
step another activity happening this year I think in the right direction thank you.