【#Tech24H】The 42nd Chinese Antarctic expedition team, organized by the Ministry of Natural Resources, People’s Republic of China, has successfully completed an Antarctic ice sheet hot water drilling test at the Qilin Subglacial Lake in East Antarctica, reaching a depth of 3,413 meters and surpassing the previous world record of 2,540 meters for international polar hot water drilling. Compared to traditional mechanical ice drills, polar hot water drilling offers stronger penetration, higher efficiency, less disturbance to the ice body, and easier large-diameter clean operation, enabling efficient access to key interfaces such as subglacial lakes, ice shelf bases, and bedrock. It is the mainstream technology used internationally for studying the deep environment of polar ice sheets and ice shelves. This test, targeting an ice sheet over 3,000 meters thick, integrated multiple equipment systems adapted to polar conditions and meeting the requirements of high-precision, fast, and clean drilling, while achieving breakthroughs in core technologies such as cryogenic resistance of polar hot water drills, control of exogenous contaminants, and high-precision control of deep hoses and winches.