| very 
mal 
er 
S, 
remote sensors. The choice of the sensors will depend on the capa- 
bility of the long range system to provide detailed real-time 
information to the ice-breakers. 
The results from SEA ICE 75 indicate that SLAR could profitably be 
the main sensor in such a system. The SLAR might be supplemented 
by other sensors such as an IR-scanner. 
American and Canadian experience also strongly supports that SLAR 
should be the main sensor in a future long-distance ice reconnais- 
sance system. In a report of 1974 by H.G. Hengeveld (Remote sensing 
applications in Canadian ice reconnaissance, Symposium on Advanced 
Concepts and Techniques in the Study of Snow and Ice Resources, 
National Academy of Sciences) it is thus stated that: 
"an all weather collection capability is of significant strategic, 
as well as economic, importance to shipping and would greatly 
reduce the amount of unproductive reconnaissance, estimated as 
high as 30 Z, currently flown over cloud covered ice. Considerable 
effort in investigating the sensor market for a solution to this 
problem has, therefore, been undertaken. Side Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) 
equipped with real time capability appears to provide the only realistic 
answer. These systems, having wide area coverage, high resolution 
and unique imaging characteristics, are effective under almost all 
weather and visibility conditions." 
6. THE PIONFERING VOYAGE OF THE SOVIET ICE-BREAKER "ARKTIKA" TO 
THE NORTH POLE 
On the 17th of August in 1977, the Soviet nuclear-powered ice-breaker 
ARKTIKA reached the North Pole on a scientific and practical experi- 
mental voyage from Murmansk via the Kara and Laptev Seas. She was 
the first surface ship to make a successful transpolar navigation. 
The specialists at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in 
Leningrad had carefully prepared a prognostic route for the ship 
by the aid of data from Sovietic high-latitude expeditions with