Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: A Kite-Pulled Sled Is Crossing Antarctica With Zero Emissions

There is a vehicle crossing Antarctica right now that burns no fuel at all. It is 15 metres long, it is pulled by kites, and on a good wind it can run at 80 kilometres per hour. The Wind Sled Antarctica 2026-2027 expedition left Spain on October 18, and its four-person crew plans to spend about 80 days covering 3,400 kilometres of the continent’s interior while running 16 research projects along the way.

The sled is the life’s work of Spanish polar explorer Ramon Larramendi, who leads the expedition. He has spent about 25 years refining the design and has travelled more than 28,000 kilometres over ice testing earlier versions. This is the ninth prototype, built lighter so it can carry more science. “The wind sled is, in a way, completely unique in the world,” Larramendi told Euronews before departure, and after 25 years of work he has earned the right to say it plainly.

Old knowledge, new engineering

The design draws on Inuit sled-building techniques, paired with modern materials and solar panels that power the scientific equipment. The platform is built from four modules and can carry up to 2,100 kilos of cargo. On this journey it starts with around 250 kilos of scientific instruments, a deliberate choice – less hauling, more measuring.

Propulsion comes from 20 kites, ranging from 5 to 150 square metres, chosen to match the weather on any given day. Average cruising speed sits near 25 kilometres per hour. No combustion engine, no aerial resupply. For scale, a comparable tracked expedition in 2011-2012 burned roughly 170,000 litres of fuel over two months covering a similar distance. This crew will burn none.

Readers who followed this week’s story on how a simple touch helped bleached coral recover in seven weeks will spot the shared theme. Again and again this autumn, the elegant answer turns out to be the low-impact one, tested patiently until it works.

A route across the map’s blank spaces

The crossing starts near the Novolazarevskaya base in Queen Maud Land and ends at the French-Italian Concordia station on Dome C. Between those points, the route crosses the Pole of Inaccessibility – the spot farthest from any Antarctic coast – and skirts the vicinity of the Pole of Cold, near the Vostok area known for the coldest temperatures ever measured on Earth. The team returns to Spain in early February.

Much of that interior has hardly any direct scientific data. Satellites watch it from above and permanent stations sample its edges, but ground measurements along a 3,400-kilometre line are rare simply because reaching the ground there is so hard. A quiet, slow, wind-drawn platform can stop where it likes. The crew plans five extended stops to set up scientific stations, take samples and run experiments at length.

Sixteen projects riding on one sled

The 16 projects were selected through a call coordinated by the Spanish Polar Committee, with research centres including CSIC, CIEMAT and INTA, six Spanish universities and international organisations taking part. The Dinglac project, led by glaciologist Francisco Navarro of the Polytechnic University of Madrid, will use ground-penetrating radar on the first ten metres of snow to read how layers accumulate and shift – basic knowledge for tracking how the ice mass is changing.

Another study, from NASA’s Ames Research Center and led by Alfonso Davila, will test whether conditions inside salt rocks could allow microbial life, using sensors for temperature, humidity and electrical conductivity. Other teams will look for microplastics and persistent pollutants, study microorganisms and viruses that survive extreme cold, measure Earth’s magnetism, test Europe’s Galileo navigation system in polar conditions, and trial equipment linked to space exploration.

The crew itself is also on the list of subjects. Alongside Larramendi travel Hilo Moreno, a polar guide and mountain technician; Mariusz Potocki, a researcher at the University of Maine; and Javier Selva, a photographer and documentary maker who also crossed Antarctica with Larramendi in 2011-2012. The WindSled Mind project, led by Gabriel G. de la Torre of the University of Cadiz, will track how prolonged isolation affects the four men’s psychology, sleep and group dynamics – knowledge that feeds directly into planning long space missions. “We are part of the research project and yes, we do feel a bit like guinea pigs, but we are happy,” Larramendi joked.

That double role, crew as both scientists and subjects, echoes the spirit of our coverage of NASA’s Artemis briefing and the next step back to the Moon. Antarctica is where long missions get rehearsed honestly, because the continent does not grade on a curve.

Why a sled, of all things, matters

It is fair to ask what one sled changes. The honest answer is the cost and footprint of asking questions. If a wind-drawn platform can deliver 16 projects across territory that conventional logistics reach only at great expense, then repeat trips become realistic – and repeat trips are how you tell change from noise. Larramendi makes exactly that case. Repeated data collection, he says, is key to seeing variations in the ice over time.

The expedition is part of the 40th Antarctic Research Campaign, marking 40 years of Spanish polar work, and its progress can be followed live through the Tierras Polares site. On arrival at Concordia, the crew will fly out, the scientific equipment will return to Spain with French support, and the sled will stay dismantled at the base, ready for a future run in the opposite direction.

Think about what that means as a piece of design. A machine that arrives, does its work quietly, and waits patiently for its next job – all without a drop of fuel for movement. Four veterans are out on the ice with it now, somewhere between Queen Maud Land and the Pole of Inaccessibility, reading the wind and the snow at 25 kilometres per hour. Science rarely looks this graceful. When it does, it is worth stopping to admire – and to follow, day by day, all the way to Dome C.

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