Last week, three Russian parachutists set a world record for jumping from the Earth’s stratosphere to the North Pole. The mission also served as a test of a new prototype communications system for use in the Arctic. They landed near Russia’s Barneo polar base after hurling themselves from an Ilyushin-76 plane at a height of 10,500 meters. The descent was captured in a spectacular video, with the parachutists spending about two and a half minutes in freefall before opening their chutes 1,000 meters above the ground.
The equipment for communication had been dropped earlier from a lower altitude, and near the Barneo polar base, they were able to power up a server using diesel generators and establish a connection to a satellite. Despite wearing heated masks, all three parachutists suffered some frostbite to their cheeks during the descent. Plunging at over 300 km/h, the air temperature around -50 degrees Celsius felt like -70 degrees Celsius to them.
Communications in the Arctic are becoming increasingly important as nations compete for resources, trade routes, and military advantage. Nikita Tsaplin, managing partner and co-founder of Russian hosting provider RUVDS noted that this prototype system demonstrated that some progress had been made towards achieving his goal of building a low-cost solution for accessing satellites from computers. The experimental system may not be as advanced as U.S.-based Iridium Communications Inc., but it is still an essential step towards creating reliable and affordable communication systems in remote areas like the Arctic.