Scientists with the St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) and the Mining Institute have created several prototype probes and samplers that will be used in the Russia's Antarctic mission to drill into the sub-glacial lake Vostok, head of the expedition and AARI director Valery Lukin said.

The institutes have jointly designed hydrological and biochemical probes, as well as samplers and a special device for sample transportation, Lukin said.

The mission will be dispatched to the northern Ladoga Lake in late August or early September to test the equipment and retrieve "lake samples" from the frozen lake water within the borehole.

Valery Lukin added sonars will be needed to study the lake bottom.

Voice of Russia