Three Russians set a world record last week by parachuting from the Earth’s stratosphere to the North Pole, in a mission that also served as a test of a new communications system for use in the Arctic, an organizer of the venture told Reuters.

Mikhail Kornichenko, Alexander Linik and Denis Yefremov dropped from an Ilyushin-76 plane flying at an altitude of 10,500 meters and free-falled for about two and a half minutes before opening their parachutes 1,000 meters above the ground. Their fall was captured on stunning video.

All three suffered some frostbite on their cheeks, despite wearing heated helmets, said organizer Nikita Chaplin. As they fell at a speed of over 300 km/h, the air temperature, which was around -50 degrees Celsius, felt like -70 degrees Celsius.

They landed near the Russian polar base Barneo, where Chaplin said they were able to power a server using diesel generators and connect to a satellite. The equipment had earlier been dropped from a lower height.

Communications in the Arctic are likely to become more important as countries including Russia, the United States and China compete for resources, trade routes and military advantage.

Chaplin said the Russians were able to send data through an experimental system, though he admitted that at this point that system could not compare to the capabilities of US-based Iridium Communications Inc, which offers coverage of both two poles of the Earth.

“Of course our solution is a pilot thing, but again we managed, from our server, to connect to our satellite and transmit data,” said Chaplin, who is a partner and co-founder of the Russian provider RUVDS.

“It’s certainly not Iridium yet, but we’ve taken some small steps in that direction and that was our goal – to see how realistic it is to build a low-cost solution to access from a computer to a satellite.”