NSF Announcement
Modernization of NSF’s Logistics Hub in Antarctica Ready to Move Forward
Office of Polar Programs
National Science Foundation
For more information, go to:
https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?preview=y&cntn_id=297843
The National Science Board (NSB) has authorized the National Science Foundation (NSF) to move forward with the Antarctic Infrastructure Modernization for Science (AIMS) project.
AIMS is planned as a 10-year undertaking to overhaul McMurdo Station into an energy- and operationally efficient platform from which to support world-class science. Through its Office of Polar Programs (OPP), NSF manages the U.S. Antarctic Program, which funds and facilitates the nation's scientific endeavors on the southernmost continent and the waters around it.
AIMS addresses major recommendations by two external expert groups on the future of research and research support in the Antarctic. The first report, Future Science Opportunities in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, carried out under the auspices of the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and delivered in 2011, laid out possible science drivers over the next several decades. A blue ribbon panel that examined infrastructure and logistics support, commissioned by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and NSF, delivered their report, More and Better Science in Antarctica through Increased Logistical Effectiveness, in 2012. In compliance with NSF's Large Facilities Office requirements, experts then conducted three stages of review – a concept design review, a preliminary design review, and a final design review – the last of which was complete in October.
Then AIMS project will overhaul McMurdo Station over the course of a decade.
For more information, go to:
https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?preview=y&cntn_id=297843