Halley Station

Halley Research Station
Location of Halley within Antarctica
General information
Type	Modular
Location	Brunt Ice Shelf Caird Coast Antarctica
Coordinates	75°35′0″S 26°39′36″W / 75.58333°S 26.66000°W / -75.58333; -26.66000Coordinates: 75°35′0″S 26°39′36″W / 75.58333°S 26.66000°W / -75.58333; -26.66000
Elevation	20 metres (66 ft)
Named for	Edmond Halley
Construction started	15 January 1956 (Halley I)
Opened	5 February 2013 (Halley VI)
Owner	British Antarctic Survey (BAS) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Technical details
Floor area	2,000 m2 (22,000 sq ft)
Design and construction
Architecture firm	Hugh Broughton Architects
Developer	British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
Engineer	AECOM
Main contractor	Galliford Try
Website
Halley VI @ bas.ac.uk

Halley Research Station, run by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), is a scientific research station on the Brunt Ice Shelf floating on the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. As with the German Neumayer-Station III it is built on an ice shelf floating on the sea, versus being on solid land on the continent of Antarctica. Because the ice shelf is slowly moving towards the open ocean it will eventually calve off creating a drifting iceberg.

In 2002, the BAS realized there was a calving event that would destroy Halley V, so a competition was undertaken to design a replacement station. The current base structure, the Halley VI, is notable for being the world's first fully relocatable research station, and is distinguishable by its colourful modular structure that is built upon huge hydraulic skis.

It is a British research facility dedicated to the study of the Earth's atmosphere. Measurements from Halley led to the discovery of the ozone hole in 1985.

Halley was founded in 1956, for the International Geophysical Year of 1957–1958, by an expedition from the Royal Society. The bay where the expedition decided to set up their base was named Halley Bay, after the astronomer Edmond Halley. The name was changed to Halley in 1977 as the original bay had disappeared due to changes in the ice shelf. The latest station, Halley VI, was officially opened in February 2013 after a test winter.

On 30 July 2014, the station lost its electrical and heating supply for 19 hours. During the outage, there were record low temperatures. Power was partially restored, but all science activities, apart from meteorological observations essential for weather forecasting, were suspended. Plans were made to vacate some of the eight modules and to shelter in the remaining few that still had heat.