(October 21, 2016) On October 20 with the reopening of the Italian Base “Mario Zucchelli”, kicked off the XXXII Summer Campaign (2016-2017) of the National Research Program in Antarctica (PNRA). The task of opening the Base to restore full functionality after the long Antarctic winter before the arrival of the other components of the Delivery is entrusted to a group of 20 people of PNRA, which left on October 20 with a flight from Christchurch on New Zealand Air Force for the US Antarctic McMurdo Station, from where they reached Terra Nova Bay on board of two small planes of the US Antarctic program. The group includes the Head Shipping Alberto Della Rovere, Enea technicians, two officers of the Armed Forces personnel to the Operations Room, a doctor, a cook and three drivers of the New Zealand helicopter. The campaign will run for four months, during which the base will be rotated about 230 people, including technicians and Italian and foreign researchers: despite the Antarctic summer, conditions in which the activities are often difficult because the coast, the station “Mario Zucchelli” is located, average temperatures are between 0 ° C and -35 ° C and there are 24 hours of light per day. From the Station “Mario Zucchelli” will start on November 9 the opening flight of the summer campaign in the French-Italian Concordia station (at the Dome C site, 3,300 m above sea level on the Antarctic plateau): a first group of Italian and French engineers will finally take over the small team of twelve people who worked in complete isolation for nine months of the winter campaign, during which at Dome C temperatures are recorded among the lowest in the world, even lower than -80 ° C. In addition to the two land bases, the XXXII expedition will involve on the Southern Ocean also two Italian research ships: the Italica, which is already in New Zealand, will set sail from the port of Lyttelton for Antarctica in late December both for transactions logistics and a research oceanographic and marine biology campaigns; OGS Explora is planning a geological-geophysical scientific campaign in January and February 2017, from the port of Hobart in Tasmania. In the climate of international cooperation that characterizes the Antarctic Science, Italian researchers held research at Antarctic bases and on foreign ships. (Red)