The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, a heavy icebreaker home-ported in Seattle, transits the Southern Ocean toward Antarctica Jan. 2, 2015, to support the U.S. Antarctic Program, which is managed by the National Science Foundation.
Military support to the USAP, dubbed Operation Deep Freeze 2015, is a joint-service mission to support civilian scientific research in Antarctica. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class George Degener). Original public domain image from Flickr