Sobral was founded with the goal of asserting Argentine sovereignty over the area while providing a launch platform for that year's planned land expedition to the South Pole.

[1] Sobral was founded on 2 April; just a day after, operation leader Captain Gustavo Adolfo Giró Tapper sent a radio message to Buenos Aires urging his superior command to speed up launching of the expedition to the South Pole so it could be carried out in the first days of October; he argued that the recently surveyed route between Belgrano I and the foothills of the polar plateau sector had very rough ice and, given the known instability of the Filchner Ice Shelf, the expeditionaires would find their path full of unknown obstacles.

15 years later, in November 1983, it was located and reopened by a six-men reconnaissance patrol after a 9-day trip traveling from Belgrano II on Ski-Doo bikes, with the mission of establishing a new connection route between both bases.

The temporary occupation was conducted by personnel belonging to Belgrano II and a technician from the National Antarctic Directorate; since then, a new expedition is sent every year between September and December, where the lowest annual average concentration of ozone in Antarctica is recorded.

[2] In order to reach the remote base this team must travel for distances up to 400 km (250 mi) over very rugged ice terrain filled with numerous cracks, which pose an often unpredictable threat.