[3] The current base is the sixth in a line of structures and includes design elements intended to overcome the challenge of building on a floating ice shelf without being buried and crushed by snow.

As of 2020[update], the base has been left unstaffed through winter since 2017, due to concerns over the propagation of an ice crack and how this might cut off the evacuation route in an emergency.

[4] In 2002, BAS realised that a calving event was possible which could destroy Halley V, so a competition was undertaken to design a replacement station.

Power was partially restored 19 hours later, but all science activities, apart from meteorological observations essential for weather forecasting, were suspended for the season.

[7][8][9] As with the German Neumayer Station III, the base floats on an ice shelf in the Weddell Sea rather than being built on solid land of the continent of Antarctica.

This ice shelf is slowly moving towards the open ocean and, if not relocated, each base would eventually calve off into a drifting iceberg.

There are six external science cabooses which house scientific equipment for each experiment spread across the site and the Clean Air Sector Laboratory (CASLab) 1 km (0.62 mi) from the station.

They were assembled next to Halley V,[citation needed] then dragged one-by-one 15 km (9.3 mi) to the intended final location and connected.

Kirk Watson, a filmmaker from Scotland, recorded the building of the station over a four-year period for a short film.

A description of the engineering challenges and the creation of the consortium was provided by Adam Rutherford to coincide with an exhibition in Glasgow.

Horizon, the long-running BBC documentary series, sent film-maker Natalie Hewit to Antarctica for three months to document the move.

This crack had been discovered on 31 October 2016, and the BAS realised that it too could cut off the station, and possibly make it drift out to sea.