In a remarkable meeting at Cape Town’s historic Castle of Good Hope on Friday afternoon, Russian astronauts Mikhail Kornienko and Aleksandr Lynnik shared their ambitious plans for a world-first, a stratospheric parachute jump over the Geomagnetic South Pole.

The daring expedition, set for November 2025, will see the pair leap from an altitude of more than 10,000 metres above Antarctica’s icy expanse.

Hosted by the Consul General of the Russian Federation in Cape Town, Ruslan Golubovskiy, the event drew diplomats, aviation enthusiasts, and science representatives, all eager to hear from two men pushing the boundaries of human endurance and exploration.

“Dear friends, I think that’s the most appropriate address today because we are among friends,” began Golubovskiy warmly.

“In my diplomatic career of more than 25 years, I have met many delegations of different levels, but it’s not so often that we diplomats have a chance to meet real astronauts.”

Golubovskiy reminisced about witnessing South Africa’s own space milestone, when Mark Shuttleworth became the first South African in space in 2002, and linked that history to Russia’s ongoing spirit of discovery.

“Today it is my special privilege to introduce to you Mikhail Kornienko, Russian astronaut who has taken multiple missions to the International Space Station,” he said.

“Overall, he spent in space more than 516 days, almost a year and a half. It’s hardly imaginable for us normal human beings that one can spend that long in space.”

Kornienko, a Hero of the Russian Federation and veteran of the International Space Station, spoke with quiet authority about the upcoming South Pole jump, a continuation of a groundbreaking mission he completed at the North Pole in 2024.

“We jumped from the stratosphere of the North Pole, and it seemed interesting to us to do this since no one else has ever jumped from the stratosphere of the North Pole,” he recalled.

“It took us about three to four years to prepare everything, and in the end, I jumped on the 12th of April, on Cosmos Day.”

That symbolic date, he explained, marks Yuri Gagarin’s first human spaceflight, a day etched into Russian history.

“Many people accused me that I was waiting in Murmansk only to do our job on the 12th of April,” Kornienko said.

“But 12th of April is a very important day for Russians, because it’s the day it all began.”

Now, the team aims to take that pioneering spirit to the southernmost reaches of the Earth.

“The project for South Pole became a continuation of our project that we did on the North Pole. But this time we were more ambitious,” Kornienko said.

“We tried to jump from 20,000 metres, the maximum our oxygen equipment allows.”

The mission titled “Stratospheric Jump to the South Pole – The Era of Pioneers Continues,” is being organised under the auspices of the Bashkortostan regional branches of the Federation of Cosmonautics of Russia and the Russian Geographical Society.

Its objectives go far beyond setting records. The jump will test Russia’s cutting-edge aerospace and survival technologies, from oxygen life-support systems and parachutes to heated gloves and goggles, all under the brutal conditions of the polar stratosphere, where temperatures plummet to -90°C and air pressure drops to around 200 mmHg.

Among the goals is to “develop survival aspects for crews of ROSS, the future high-latitude Russian space station, in the event of an off-nominal landing in polar latitudes,” as outlined in the team’s mission presentation.

The expedition will also serve as a demonstration of Russia’s scientific and technological capabilities in extreme conditions, and a symbolic reaffirmation of national presence at the poles.

Kornienko’s vivid descriptions of life in the stratosphere captivated the Cape Town audience.

“At an altitude of 10–11 kilometres, the temperature is minus 55 to minus 60 degrees. During free fall, it might even reach minus 70,” he said.

“The oxygen equipment we were given came from a Moscow factory; we decided to make a small modification to the regulator through which we breathe, because it could simply freeze.”

During their 2024 North Pole jump, Kornienko and Lynnik fell for approximately 2.5 minutes at speeds of up to 300 km/h before deploying their parachutes at an altitude of 1.5 kilometres.

“It never pulls too hard,” Kornienko explained.

“I always have altitude in reserve. If things go wrong, I still have altitude in reserve.”

For Russia, this mission is part of a long continuum of polar exploration milestones: from the first North Pole flights in 1937, to submarine expeditions beneath the Arctic ice in the 1960s, to planting the Russian flag at the North Pole seabed in 2007. Kornienko and Lynnik now carry that torch into the 21st century.

IOL News

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