SHANGHAI, Aug. 8 -- AFTER a seven-month upgrade China's polar research vessel "Xuelong" will make her maiden voyage to Antarctica in October, ready to begin looking deep under ground and into deep space.

Also as a part of China's 24th Antarctica expedition, researchers will look for a precise location for the country's third research station in Antarctica.

"This expedition will be a most challenging one for us," Zhang Zhanhai, director of the city-based Polar Research Institute of China, said yesterday.

He said China has selected an area around Dome A - the highest point on the Antarctica Plateau - to build the country's third station.

Dome A is on the east coast of Antarctica where average wind speeds are less than a few kilometers per hour, making it possibly the calmest place on Earth.

However, few countries have managed to establish research station at Dome A because of the difficulties in reaching it by land and with constant temperatures of below minus 80 degrees Celsius.

One of the tasks for the new station will be to study extreme conditions on land which may be the key to the mystery of global climate changes.

A key mission for the research team will be drilling ice samples from the surface to the very depths of Antarctica to study past climate changes by analyzing key chemicals in the ice.

The new station is expected to be built over the next five years, officials said.

The team will also search for the best location to set up the country's first astronomical telescope in Antarctica.

Scientists said Antarctica was a unique location for an astronomical telescope because it has an average altitude of 4,000 meters without atmospheric pollution, making it an ideal place for observation.

But because of the extreme temperatures the costs for maintenance and the operation of the telescope will be "huge." Specific details of the telescope have not been decided yet.

Since March the icebreaker "Xuelong" has been undergoing a major upgrade and renovation at the Shanghai Shipyard Corporation on the Huangpu River.