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“We saw crevasses from the first patch of radar data onward,” Bach says. “The first area was at the shear zone, an area where multiple glaciers come together and flow in parallel. There is a road bladed into it, an attempt to build a road to the South Pole. It has not been maintained this year, but we think we saw it anyway in the radar data. This couldn’t be seen by the naked eye.”
The Tres Hermanas crevasses, selected by Guard customers, were studied closely. The three crevasses are difficult to see from the air and are located in a fairly flat area that represents a possible location to land LC-130 aircraft. The Tres Hermanas are relatively narrow — around four meters wide — and are covered with snow bridges. Loose snow blows across and camouflages the crevasses, making them look like all the other terrain, especially from the air. The bridges across these crevasses are made up of very loose snow and are only a couple meters thick.
“The Antarctica MiniSAR radar can identify hidden threats and effectively cover large areas,” says Mirabal.
“The efficacy of the sensor for this application has now been proven,” Bach says. “I hope the project has the opportunity to carry forward to a fully deployable system that the Guard can use to make its job of supplying the remote camps and conducting emergency operations in Antarctica safer and more efficient.”
Now that Sandia has successfully demonstrated the ability to see buried crevasses, the team will begin to integrate the system with the LC-130 aircraft. “Integration will be a challenge as a lot of work is still necessary to make the system more rugged and user friendly, but we’re up to the task,” says Mirabal. “The MiniSAR radar has other applications, such as day or night search and rescue, a capability the Guard needs. And we will continue to assist them.”
Technical contact: Tim Mirabal,
(505) 844-5951, mirabatj@sandia.gov
Media contact: Michael Padilla,
(505) 284-5325, mjpadil@sandia.gov