By Robert Greenall BBC News Online

The flight will push the Mi-26 helicopter to its limits

A small team of rescuers will be flown by helicopter on Saturday morning to the ice floe in the Greenland Sea.

The ice floe split on Wednesday sending much of the North Pole-32 station, its equipment and most of its provisions to the bottom of the sea.

Officials say that weather conditions are reasonably favourable for the flight, and that the scientists themselves are in good spirits and no immediate danger.

But the sheer remoteness of the region and the length of the rescue helicopter's planned flight - six hours - could exacerbate any unforeseen difficulties it encounters on the way.

The ice floe is about 750km north-west of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, where the Mi-26 helicopter will begin its flight, and where weather conditions were not bad on Friday.

The plan is for the helicopter to hoist the scientists, none of whom are hurt, off the ice floe. The ice is expected to be too thin for the aircraft to land.

Weather watch

The total range of the helicopter is around 1,600 km, leaving little room for manoeuvre if anything goes wrong.

We have the co-ordinates - we will look for them, find them and God willing all will be well Artur Chilingarov Rescue operation leader

"It won't be an easy flight," deputy parliament speaker Artur Chilingarov, the co-ordinator of the rescue operation and himself a former explorer, told the BBC.

The team would need an exact weather forecast and favourable weather conditions on departure, and would need to have the capacity to continue forecasting on route, Mr Chilingarov said.

If necessary, they could stop on the ice on route until weather conditions improved.

Ultimately they need to find the station - they have the co-ordinates, but the floe is drifting at a speed of about 10km per day.

'Success likely'

There is no immediate danger to the scientists, polar experts say - despite the thinness of the ice it is expected to hold firm.

Morale is said to be high among the scientists

Station leader Vladimir Koshelyev told Russian TV on Thursday that enough provisions had survived the accident to last the scientists five days, and that they had heating and shelter.

It appears that they are living in a tent, although some buildings of the station may have survived as well.

"As long as they have a tent and equipment it shouldn't be a danger," Trond Svenoe, head of the Norwegian Sverdrup research station on Svalbard, told BBC News Online.

He said there was little wind in the Svalbard area but some cloud, and the weather was likely to improve further over the weekend.

Mr Chilingarov, who himself headed a previous floating research station - North Pole-22 in 1973 - said that there was no reason why the operation should not be successful, as the rescue team had access to all the information they needed to carry out the mission.