| From May 14-27, 2021, NOAA Ocean Exploration led the 2021 Technology Demonstration
on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to Norfolk, Virginia.
The expedition provided an opportunity to test several technologies that will allow
the ocean exploration community to explore deeper, farther, and more comprehensively
than previously possible. The expedition brought together NOAA?s Northwest Fisheries
Science Center, NASA?s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA JPL), the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution (WHOI), and the Inner Space Center/University of Rhode Island (ISC/URO)
to advance new ocean technologies and sampling techniques. The expedition had three
overall objectives; field testing and engineering readiness of WHOI/NASA JPL Oprheus
autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), piloting environmental DNA (eDNA) collection
for NOAA Ocean Exploration and mapping priority deepwater areas offshore the U.S.
Southeast, largely focused on the Blake Plateau. The Orpheus AUV project was the first
Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute supported project to take place on a NOAA
ship. During 14 days at sea 8 AUV deployments were completed between 12 and 866 meters
in depth. Over 724 GB of downlooking AUV 4K video were collected. The AUVs surveyed
30 linear kilometers of seafloor and logged over 16 hours of bottom time. The AUVs
spent a total of 32 hours 59 minutes in the water, which included autonomous water
column exploration. Twelve CTD rosette casts were completed, most simultaneous with
AUV operations. Using the Niskin bottles on the CTD rosette, 120 water samples were
collected for post-cruise eDNA analysis. A detailed standard operating procedures
document for eDNA collection was developed during the expedition. Exploration mapping
operations included acoustic data collection using the EM 304 MKII multibeam echosounder,
Simrad EK60/80 split-beam echosounders, Knudsen sub-bottom profiler and Acoustic Doppler
Profilers. 8,703 square kilometers of largely unmapped seafloor were mapped using
the EM 304 with 8,519 square kilometers being within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone
and Territorial Sea deeper than 200 m. All operations and data collected were in U.S.
waters. EX-21-02 took full advantage of the additional reach afforded by a world that
has shifted towards virtual interactions as the norm. By increasing accessibility
through free, virtual, and public formats, the team was able to interact with far
greater numbers than has been typical in the past. |