Workers survey the scene after a titanium ring is placed on the carbon fiber wound cylinder for Cyclops 2’s pressure vessel. (OceanGate Photo)
OceanGate says it’s completed assembly of the core pressure vessel for its Cyclops 2 submersible vehicle, which is due to take on the first crewed scientific expedition to the Titanic shipwreck in years.
The privately held company, based in Everett, Wash., said in a news release that it’s finished bonding two titanium rings to the ends of a 56-inch-wide, 100-inch-long carbon-fiber cylinder, thus forming the core of the pressure vessel.
Tony Nissen, OceanGate’s director of engineering, said bonding the rings to the cylinder marked a “major milestone” in the construction of Cyclops 2.
“The precision we achieved guarantees that we have a solid foundation to work with as we continue assembly of the sub,” he said.
An artist’s conception shows OceanGate’s Cyclops 2 submersible surveying the wreck of the Titanic. (Andrea Gatti Illustration for OceanGate Expeditions)
The expedition team will use OceanGate’s state-of-the-art submersible, the Cyclops 2, and the latest in subsea imaging technology to assess the condition of the disintegrating shipwreck and document artifacts in the debris field.
OceanGate Expeditions is the exploration subsidiary of OceanGate Inc., based in Everett, Wash. The venture brings together explorers, scientists and filmmakers to document iconic shipwrecks, hydrothermal vents and other deep-sea curiosities.
Next year’s seven-week Titanic expedition, which is due to begin in May 2018, is envisioned as the first in a series of annual surveys of the Atlantic Ocean’s most famous shipwreck.
A deep-sea octopus explores lava flows that erupted at Axial Seamount in 2015. At the time, this was probably the youngest seafloor on the planet. (NOAA / Oregon State University Photo / Bill Chadwick)
An underwater seismic network pioneered by the University of Washington and other institutions is revealing how thousands of tiny shocks can herald huge eruptions.
Results from the Ocean Observatories Initiative’s Cabled Array, published today by the journal Science and Geophysical Research Letters, focus on the buildup of seismic activity in advance of a 2015 eruption at Axial Seamount, the most active submarine volcano in the northeast Pacific Ocean. The release of the results was timed to coincide with this week’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
“Instruments used by Ocean Observatories Initiative scientists are giving us new opportunities to understand the inner workings of this volcano, and of the mechanisms that trigger volcanic eruptions in many environments,” Rick Murray, director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences, said in a news release. “The information will help us predict the behavior of active volcanoes around the globe.”
An artist’s conception shows the Cyclops 2 submersible craft. (OceanGate Illustration)
The company that helped map the wreck of the Andrea Doria is moving forward with the construction of a submersible craft that can go much, much deeper – 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) deep, or two and a half miles below the ocean surface.
OceanGate announced on Dec. 8 that it has officially begun construction of the five-person Cyclops 2 submersible. The company, based in Everett, Wash., has been working on the design and engineering for the 22-foot-long craft in cooperation with the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Lab since 2013.
Over the past year, OceanGate has been pressure-testing a one-third-scale model of Cyclops 2 in preparation for moving ahead with the full-scale vehicle.
“Construction of Cyclops 2 is a significant milestone in human exploration of the ocean,” OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said in a news release. “When completed, it will be the only privately owned submersible in the world that can take five people to these depths.”
Liquid Robotics’ Wave Glider floats on the surface of the ocean, but it’s propelled by a wave-powered undersea glider. (Liquid Robotics Photo)
The Boeing Co. says it has agreed to acquire Liquid Robotics, its teammate in a years-long effort to create surfboard-sized robots that can use wave power to roam the seas.
The acquisition is expected to help Boeing create military communication networks that can transmit information autonomously from the sea to satellites via Sensor Hosting Autonomous Remote Craft, or SHARCs.
Liquid Robotics was founded in 2007 and currently has about 100 employees in California and Hawaii. Once the deal is completed, the company will become a subsidiary of Boeing. The arrangement is similar to the one that applies to Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary that is headquartered in Bingen, Wash., and manufactures ScanEagle military-grade drones.
Just as the fixed-wing ScanEagle drones can gather and transmit data while they’re airborne, SHARCs can monitor maritime operations and send the information back via satellite to their handlers. Boeing also makes a 50-ton underwater robot called Echo Voyager that can explore the deep sea for six months at a time, as well as two smaller unmanned undersea vehicles. The SHARCs can serve as communication relays for those undersea robots.
The heavily encrusted bow of the Andrea Doria is dimly visible in this image captured from OceanGate’s Cyclops 1 submersible. (Credit: OceanGate)
A crew of undersea explorers from Everett, Wash., has gotten the best look in decades at the Andrea Doria, an Italian ocean liner that sank 60 years ago off Nantucket.
The hard-to-reach shipwreck has been called the “Mount Everest of scuba diving.” But this Everest is crumbling more quickly than expected, the OceanGate crew reported.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush told reporters at a Monday news conference in Boston that the ship looks “dramatically different” from images captured during previous dives. More than a dozen sonar images reveal that a significant portion of the ship’s hull has decayed, 240 feet beneath the Alantic Ocean’s surface. A large section of the bow appears to have broken off.
“Imagine it as a collapsing cave,” the Boston Globe quoted Rush as saying. “Once the cave loses its basic structure, it deteriorates very quickly.”
Sensors that are part of the Cabled Array monitor the El Gordo hydrothermal vent at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon coast. (Credit: NSF / OOI / UW / ISS; V15)
Imagery and readings from the initiative’s network of undersea platforms and sensors have been flowing over the Internet for months, and the data flow is still on the increase. But the NSF is highlighting the project’s progress this week to celebrate World Oceans Day on June 8.
“The OOI is placing as much ocean data online as possible, and making it available in real time,” Roger Wakimoto, the NSF’s assistant director for geosciences, said in a news release. “In addition to scientific discovery, we hope to spark the public’s interest in the sea, and contribute to the safety of those who make their living on the water or vacation along the coast.”
The OOI Data Portal provides free access to the raw data from more than 830 instruments, spread across 83 platforms in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The offerings include seismic data, temperature readings, chemical measurements – and regularly scheduled real-time HD video feeds from the Mushroom, a 14-foot-tall, active hydrothermal vent located 250 miles off the Oregon Coast on Axial Seamount.
Orcas swim in and around Puget Sound with the Seattle skyline in the background. (Credit: NOAA)
An effort to create the world’s first sanctuary set aside for rehabilitating whales and dolphins is moving ahead, but now the hard part begins.
Today marked the official launch of the Whale Sanctuary Project, a non-profit organization that aims to identify and build a refuge for whales, porpoises and dolphins that have been retired from entertainment facilities or rescued from injury or sickness in the wild.
Munchkin Inc., a baby-product company headquartered in California, put up an initial $200,000 contribution to begin looking at potential sites for a seaside sanctuary and draw up a strategic plan for the operation’s early phase. Another $1 million was pledged to complete the sanctuary once the site is selected.
BluHaptics’ chief technology officer, Fredrik Ryden, controls a robotic arm using a haptic pen and an Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset. (Credit: BluHaptics)
BluHaptics has received a $747,197 grant from the National Science Foundation to work on a virtual-reality robotic control system that could transform underwater operations as much as drones have transformed aerial operations.
The project, which includes a subcontract to the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, will use 3-D data fusion and machine learning to develop safer, more intuitive ways to pilot remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs. Such vehlcles can capture imagery and manipulate objects miles beneath the sea surface.
“Our technology will make subsea and underwater operations safer,” BluHaptics’ chief technology officer, Fredrik Ryden, said today in a blog posting announcing the NSF’s Phase II Small Business Innovative Research grant. “Divers can be replaced in hazardous situations by telerobots with improved control based on our products. The rate of untoward incidents, and their severity, will be mitigated for a large range of subsea activities.”
Sea star wasting disease can cause starfish to turn white, lose their limbs and disintegrate in a matter of days. (Credit: Kevin Lafferty / USGS)
The mass die-off of starfish off the West Coast is becoming a little less mysterious: Scientists say the starfish, also known as sea stars, fell prey to a one-two punch of virus infection plus unusually warm sea water.
The die-off started in 2013, reached a peak in 2014 and continued last year. Infected sea stars developed lesions that gradually dissolved the creatures from the outside, causing the arms to break away and leaving only whitened piles of starfish goop.
The outbreak has virtually wiped out ochre stars in the coastal waters of Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands and the Olympic Peninsula. More than 20 other species have suffered from Mexico all the way north to Alaska.
