China's 42nd Antarctic expedition team set sail from Shanghai on Saturday.

"During this expedition, China plans, for the first time, to conduct scientific drilling experiments in lakes deep in the Antarctic inland ice sheet," said Wei Fuhai, leader and chief scientist of China's 42nd Antarctic expedition team. "Using domestically built hot-water and thermal-melting drill systems, we will carry out clean drilling and sampling through ice more than 3,000 meters thick."

Antarctic subglacial lakes are characterized by extreme conditions, including high pressure, low temperature, darkness, and oligotrophy, hosting a unique ecosystem and preserve rich archives of ice-sheet history and climate change. Investigating these lakes is therefore essential for understanding sedimentary processes and the evolution of life.

"Continuously enhancing our ability to understand, protect, and utilize Antarctica is not only an inevitable requirement for China to build itself into a strong maritime nation, but also a way to make new contributions to promoting the building of a community with a shared future for humanity," said Long Wei, deputy director of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration.

China's Qinling Station in Antarctica began operation on February 7, 2024. During its construction, China deployed, for the first time, a wind-solar-hydrogen-storage hybrid renewable energy system, cutting fossil fuel consumption by over 100 tonnes annually. Even on the polar nights without wind or sunlight, the station can still operate on stored green power for about 2.5 hours.

The construction team will install and optimize the Qinling Station's smart system. The warehouse pairs polar robots with an AI-driven platform to enable unmanned management throughout the entire process, boosting material handling efficiency by 40 percent.

During this expedition, a suite of new technologies will be deployed and tested in the icy wilderness of the Antarctic. Core hardware for validation includes China's independently developed and manufactured Snow Leopard 6×6 wheeled vehicle and the THT550 high-power fully hydraulic towing equipment.

The expedition brings together a diverse team of over 500 members from more than 80 institutions on the Chinese mainland, alongside researchers from over 10 countries and regions, including Thailand, Chile, Portugal and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, fostering broader international scientific collaboration.

Long said the team is scheduled to conclude the mission by May 2026 and return to China.

(With input from Xinhua)