Forgot your password? Data Storage  + - Expedition Reaches
Robotic Antarctic Observatory->  Submitted by Michael Ashley
Michael Ashley writes "20 people from the Chinese inland
traverse team arrived at Dome A, Antarctica earlier today after
an arduous 19 day, 1220 km, traverse with 7 vehicles and about
500 tonnes of supplies. The arrival of the expedition was
captured by a webcam installed in PLATO. PLATO is a completely
robotic jet-fuel-powered astronomical observatory that provides
its own electricity, heat, and internet connectivity via Iridium
satellites. PLATO operated throughout 2009 at Dome A collecting
astronomical and site-testing data with no humans on-site. The
PLATO computers are PC/104 systems running Debian from solid
state disks, and are able to function down to -60C. China is
building a major new inland base at Dome A called Kunlun
Station, with astronomy as one of its objectives.  Slashdot
readers might be interested in the following story about how we
recovered from an interesting disk corru