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In the year 1988-89 India built its second indigenous station Maitri at Schirmacher oasis, which is well equipped and facilitated to accommodate scientists, round the year and allow them to conduct their scientific experiments. Maitri can accommodate around 25 people during winter and around 45 additional scientists to accommodate in summer huts built in front of the Maitri, during summer. It is built to keep the environment impact minimum. At Maitri station laboratories are setup in disciplines of Earth Science, Environmental Science, Upper Atmosphere, Meteorology and Geomagnetism.
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Earth Science A permanent GPS station at Maitri is contributing to understanding the inter-plate motion and crustal deformation between India and Antarctica The station has been tied up geodetically with other ITRF reference stations. The Seismological Observatory at Mai tri is a part of the Global Seismological Network and contributes the data to USGS, ISC (UK) and AnSWeR. Absolute gravity measurements too have been initiated to address the crustal deformation studies in conjunction with GPS for complementary verification, determination of geoid, glacial rebound and determination of sea level rise.
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Upper Atmosphere Laser heterodyne system using tunable CO2 laser with Acousto-Optic spectrophotometer established. Vertical profile of O3 and NO2 in the atmosphere at Antarctica is being continuously recorded by weber spectrometer.
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Meteorology Micrometeorological data is recorded hourly and transmitted on real-time basis. Indian station Maitri is included in the WMO network of synoptic stations and has been assigned the index number 89514. Ozone monitoring has been continuing since 1987.
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Geomagnetism Interaction of sun’s
atmosphere with earth magnetic field and magnetic storms that are produced
by the solar activity, affect the technical aspects of satellite operation
and communication systems. Instruments like Riometer/Flux gate Magnetometer
have been installed to observe the geospace interaction. Statistical
occurrence of storms and sub storms with intensification of auroral electro
jet currents is being studied. The three components of the earth's magnetic
field (X,Yand Z), for the study and relationship of storms and substorms,are
measured by two flux gate magnetometers, two at Maitri and one at the Shelf.
A digital Proton Precession Magnetometer is in operation at Maitri to
measure the total magnetic field and the sampling rate is of 5
seconds. A 30MHz Riometer is in operation at Maitri for D-region absorption
studies and the data is sampled for every second with an averaging of
one minute and one hour.
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Environmental Science An EIA laboratory is setup to in the main block of Maitri station to carry out basic physico-chemical analysis of air, water and wastewater analysis. Various instruments/equipments are installed to facilitate the study i.e. BOD incubator, pH meter, conductivity meter, oven, water distillation unit etc.
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