Preparation is everything, especially during a mission to Antarctica. This fell onto the shoulders of workshop supervisor Michael Paul and his assistant Charlie Zöllner from Schmidbauer, who worked on the crane from when it was disassembled in Gräfelfing until it was reassembled in Antarctica. During the disassembly process in Germany, they were supported by Tobias Hunger, a customer service representative from the Liebherr plant in Ehingen.

Michael Paul: There was a lot of pressure to do things quickly because disassembling the crane wasn't the only thing we had to do. We also had to prepare and pack all the spare parts and tools we would need for the installation on site. Things also became quite stressful when we needed to have individual crane parts packed by a specialist company and when we had to receive a large delivery of spare parts from Liebherr. Because of the tight schedule, everyone had to work at maximum capacity.

Michael Paul: Disassembling a crane is by no means standard procedure. Plus, the individual parts all had to weigh under eight tonnes and had to fit within specific dimensions. So we worked very closely with Liebherr customer service whilst we were disassembling the crane.

Tobias Hunger: It’s our job to solve our customer’s problems while also working to a tight schedule. But even for us, this was an unusual challenge. We studied the crane's technical drawings and developed a disassembly plan. We had to improvise certain things during the disassembly process; for example, we had to prepare a new, smaller diesel tank for the engine in the crane's undercarriage. Normally, the diesel tank for the undercarriage is located in the superstructure, but that had to be removed to keep within the weight limits. It was imperative that the engine would function correctly whilst the crane was being assembled on site. As we were disassembling the crane, it was also important to consider how it would be reassembled in Antarctica. We wanted to make sure that we would be able to reassemble it in as few steps as possible under the harsh weather conditions there.

Michael Paul: We very quickly learned a local saying: ‘In Antarctica, the only certain thing is that nothing is certain.’ So for example, it took longer than expected to transfer the crane’s parts onto the pontoons because of all the ice floes floating off the coast of the island. Even just positioning the outrigger on the pontoon was very stressful because of its size. We had to guide the lifting work from a small motorboat. But to get down to the boat, we had to climb down a metal ladder on the side of the military vessel. It was a long drop, looking down the side of the ship. That was a pretty scary sight.

Charlie Zöllner: You just pray that after all the work, the crane will actually start up. You can imagine how relieved I was the moment I turned the key in the ignition and the crane started up immediately.

Michael Paul: Me too. I mean that shows that all our planning had really paid off. Looking back on it, I was especially impressed by how well everyone worked together, from the support we received from the German Aerospace Centre, to the expertise shared by Liebherr during the disassembly phase and then the help we received on site from the Chilean military. If it hadn’t been for that level of teamwork, a project like this would never have been feasible!

The German Aerospace Centre has been operating a polar research station on a small island around 30 kilometres off the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula since 1991. The German Antarctic Receiving Station (GARS) O’Higgins receives satellite signals and Earth observation data via an antenna that was specially designed for operation in Antarctica.

The satellite signals and Earth observation data is analysed as part of multiple research projects and is fed into national and international databases. The data provides researchers with significant insights into how Antarctica is changing. This can also be used to help researchers learn more about the way the climate is changing worldwide.

Since 2010, the station has been operated by a team of four researchers all year round. For around two to three months each year, the researchers here must endure temperatures between -20°C and +8°C and wind forces of up to 200 kilometres per hour. The research station is divided into two units: one building houses the research facilities and the other contains the additional technical infrastructure. This infrastructure is essential because the station is operated autonomously and runs off its own power supply from diesel generators. There is also an osmosis installation for water treatment and a biological purification system. The infrastructure building needed an overhaul, so plans were made to renovate and extend it by 2022.

One of the challenges for the construction work is the lack of space on the island, which is only 300 x 200 metres in size. The German research station is also directly adjacent to the Base General Bernardo O'Higgins, a Chilean Antarctic Military Base. ‘It was absolutely critical for the German Aerospace Centre that the crane could be manoeuvred in these cramped conditions and that the construction site could be fully covered from a single location’, explains Minka St. James, who directed the project for Schmidbauer.

Customer service is also extremely important, even in Antarctica. It is crucial to use the short summer period as efficiently as possible because that is the only time of year in which construction work can be carried out and the transport routes are navigable. There is no time to waste. ‘That’s why we chose a Liebherr crane because, in the event of an emergency, an engineer can be sent to the research station from the Liebherr customer service centre in Chile’, Minka continues.

Once the crane was assembled, it was immediately shored up for the winter. All the test runs were successfully completed during the following Southern Hemisphere summer (December to March of 2019). The construction work to extend the research station kicked off officially in November 2019 and is expected to be completed in 2022.