China’s domestically developed “Snow Leopard” 6×6 wheeled vehicle has completed more than 10,000 kilometres of testing in Antarctica without a single failure, Xinhua reports. Members of China’s 42nd Antarctic expedition described the milestone as a significant advance in the country’s polar logistics capabilities.
The vehicle was tested between early December and early February at China’s Zhongshan research station, across five types of inland terrain: sea ice, gravel, soft snow, compacted snow and solid ice. The tests were designed to assess performance under the world’s harshest continent’s most demanding conditions.
According to Sun Peng, who oversaw on-site testing, the Snow Leopard travelled at speeds of up to 28 kilometres per hour on soft snow and 42 kilometres per hour on hard snow. On solid ice, it maintained a stable cruising speed of 65 kilometres per hour, with a maximum operating range of about 700 kilometres on a full tank.
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Yao Xu, a team leader on the mission, spoke of one emergency mission in which the Snow Leopard operated continuously for 12 hours, completing a 263-kilometre round trip in blizzard conditions with visibility reduced to around three metres. He said it marked the first time China’s Antarctic ground transport managed to achieve such speeds when severe weather made air support impossible.
Sun said her team had pulled off technological breakthroughs relating to the vehicle’s power system and tyre material to reach these performance benchmarks under severe weather conditions.
Expedition members said the Snow Leopard addressed long-standing gaps in China’s Antarctic operations around rapid ground transport, scientific support missions and emergency rescues. Until now, its inland expeditions have largely depended on imported tracked vehicles, which are slower, consume more fuel, and are more expensive to maintain.
