Halley Research Station

• Built: 1956
  • 1956: Main structure[12][13][14][15]
  • 1961: Main living hut
  • 1964: Office block on surface
• Abandoned: 1968
• Structure: Timber hut

• Built: 1967
• Abandoned: 1973
• Structure: A series of wooden huts[16][17]
  • The roofs were reinforced with steel supports to help support the weight of the snow but the station still had to be abandoned in 1973, after just six years.[11]

• Built: 1973
• Abandoned: 1983
  • In 10 years the base was buried 12–15 metres below the surface and access and ventilation problems led to its abandonment.[18] Years later it emerged from the ice cliff at the sea.[11]
• Structure: Built inside Armco steel tubing designed to take the snow loadings building up over it

• Built: 1983
• Abandoned: 1994
• Structure:
  • Two-storey buildings constructed inside four interconnected plywood tubes with access shafts to the surface. The tubes were 9 metres in diameter and consisted of insulated reinforced panels designed to withstand the pressures of being buried in snow and ice.[19][20]
  • Designed to cope with being buried in snow.

Halley V, Winter 1999

• Built: completed 1990, operational 1989
• Demolished: late 2012
  • Once its successor, Halley VI, was operational, Halley V was demolished.[21]
• Structure:
  • Main buildings were built on steel platforms that were raised annually to keep them above the snow surface.
  • Stilts were fixed on the flowing ice shelf so it eventually became too close to the calving edge.[3]
  • Lawes platform: Main platform
  • Drewry summer accommodation: Two-storey building was on skis and could be dragged to a new higher location each year.[22]
    • The Drewry block was later moved to join the Halley VI base
  • Simpson Building (Ice and Climate Building) (ICB): On stilts[23] and was raised each year to counteract the buildup of snow
    • It housed the Dobson spectrophotometer used to discover the ozone hole.
  • Piggott platform (Space Science Building): Used for upper atmosphere research.[24]

Halley VI, 2013

• Built: Over four summers, first operational data 28 February 2012, officially opened 2013.[25][26]
• Structure: Modular
• Cost: Approximately £26 million[9]

Halley VI is a string of eight modules which, like Halley V, are jacked up on hydraulic legs to keep it above the accumulation of snow. Unlike Halley V, there are retractable giant skis on the bottom of these legs, which allow the building to be relocated periodically.[27][28][29][30][31]

The Drewry summer accommodation building and the garage from Halley V were dragged to the Halley VI location and continue to be used. The Workshop and Storage Platform (WASP) provides storage for field equipment and a workshop for technical services. There are six external science cabooses which house scientific equipment for each experiment spread across the site and the Clean Air Sector Laboratory (CASLab) 1 km from the station.

An architectural design competition was launched by RIBA Competitions and the British Antarctic Survey in June 2004 to provide a new design for Halley VI. The competition was entered by a number of architectural and engineering firms. The winning design, by Faber Maunsell and Hugh Broughton Architects was chosen in July 2005.[9][5]

Halley VI was built in Cape Town, South Africa by a South African consortium.[32][33] A total of 26 modular accommodation pods were added in total, installed in eight modules,[34] which provides fully serviced accommodation for 32 people. The first sections were shipped to Antarctica in December 2007. It was assembled next to Halley V,[35] then dragged one-by-one 15 km and reconnected.[36]

Halley VI Station was officially opened in Antarctica on 5 February 2013. Kirk Watson, a filmmaker from Scotland, recorded the building of the station over a four-year period for a short film. A description of the engineering challenges and the creation of the consortium was provided by Adam Rutherford to coincide with an exhibition in Glasgow.[37]

A focus of the new architecture was the desire to improve the living conditions of the scientists and staff on the station. Solutions included consulting a colour psychologist to create a special colour palette to offset the more than 100 days of darkness each year, daylight simulation lamp alarm clocks to address biorhythm issues, the use of special wood veneers to imbue the scent of nature and address the lack of green growth, as well as lighting design and space planning to address social interaction needs and issues of living and working in isolation.[9][5]

Another priority of the structure construction was to have the least environmental impact on the ice as possible.[9]

The British Antarctic Survey announced that it intended to move Halley VI to a new site in summer 2016–2017.[38] A large crack had been propagating through the ice and threatened to cut the station off from the main body of the ice shelf, prompting the decision to move. This shifted the station 23 kilometres (14 mi) from its previous site, the first and as of 2020 only time the station has been moved since it became operational in 2012. Horizon, the long-running BBC documentary series, sent film-maker Natalie Hewit to Antarctica for three months to document the move.[39] BAS completed the relocation of the base in February 2017.[40]

Whilst the station was being relocated, concerns over another crack (dubbed the "Halloween Crack") emerged. This crack had been discovered on 31 October 2016, and now the BAS realized that it too could cut off the station, and possibly make it drift out to sea. Since evacuating the crew is all but impossible during winter, the BAS announced in March 2017 it would withdraw its staff from the base during March through October.[41] Staff returned after the Antarctic winter in November 2017 and found the station in very good shape.[42] As of 2020 the staff has been removed every winter since.[43]

In a typical winter the team is isolated from when the last aircraft leaves in early March until the first plane arrives in late October.

Before BAS shut down winter operations, there were around 13 overwintering staff. Most are the technical specialists required to keep the station and the scientific experiments running. The 2016 wintering team at Halley included a chef, a doctor, a communications manager, a vehicle mechanic, a generator mechanic, an electrician, a plumber, a field assistant, two electronics engineers, a meteorologist and a data manager. In addition there is a winter station leader who is sworn in as a magistrate prior to deployment and whose main role is to oversee the day-to-day management of the station.

1996 saw the first female winterers at Halley. In 2006, five out of sixteen winterers were women.[46]