On August 2, 2016 the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus held an enlarged meeting of the Interdepartmental Commission of the Republic of Belarus on Antarctic issues. Deputy Director of the Federal State Organization "The Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic" of Roshydromet, the head of the Russian Antarctic expedition Valery V. Lukin and the head of the Logistics Centre of the Russian Antarctic expedition of the Federal State Organization "The Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic" Roshydromet Vyacheslav L. Martianov arrived to participate in the meeting in the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

The head of the Belarusian Antarctic expedition Alexey A. Gaidashov reported on the results of participation of the delegation of the Republic of Belarus in the 39th Consultative Meeting of the Antarctic Treaty in May and June 2016 in Santiago (Chile). The sides discussed implementation of the State Programme in the course of the 8th Belarusian Antarctic and the 61st Russian Antarctic expedition in 2015-2016. Then the participants discussed the course of preparations for the 9th BAE and implementation of measures of the subprogramme № 3 “Monitoring of polar areas of the Earth, the creation of the Belarusian Antarctic station and carrying out polar expeditions” of the State programme "High technologies and technique" for 2016-2020.

It is planned that the Belarusian expedition of six people will travel to the Antarctic in November of this year. About 40 tons of cargo, mostly scientific and support equipment to provide engineering and technical work on the assembly of the station, as well as food and fuel will be sent with the expedition.