Today, NOAA and the Department of Commerce announced that $2.7 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) will be used to replenish and expand an important array of robotic floats in the Argo program that measure ocean and climate data as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.

Exail's DriX Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) recently completed a first-of-its-kind fisheries research survey to assess the impact on biomass and fish stock before, during and after wind farm construction.

Beaufort, NC; Caudan, France; Satellite Beach, FL — In a collaboration among NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), AUV manufacturer RTsys and subsea imaging technology manufacturer Arctic Rays, the NemoSens SwordFish is designed to revolutionize ocean exploration and research by enhancing NOAA's efforts to study and understand the seabed.

NOAA's National Data Buoy Center replaced a moored coastal weather buoy in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary with a Saildrone Explorer to mitigate impacts caused by mooring material. Saildrone and NOAA's National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) announced today that Station 40612, a moored buoy located in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, has been replaced with a Saildrone uncrewed surface vehicle (USV).

Ocean Power Technologies, a leader in innovative and cost-effective low-carbon marine power, data and service solutions, today announced the award of three separate Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Multiple-Award Contracts (MAC) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). These awards further add to OPT’s reputation as a reliable U.S. Government contractor and build on recent successes in the defense and national security space.

Today, the Department of Commerce and NOAA are launching the Ocean-Based Climate Resilience Accelerators program, a $60 million investment in coastal resilience and American small businesses through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. The program, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, will foster public-private partnerships to help support small businesses that are developing sustainable technologies geared toward climate resilience to attract capital, mature their technologies and scale their business models for climate impact.

NOAA and partners are improving hurricane forecasting by harnessing the power of new technologies and working to coordinate these technologies to predict hurricane track, intensity, and rapid intensification. Uncrewed systems and other tools are gathering data at different levels of the ocean and the atmosphere that are key to understanding how storms form, build, and intensify.

NOAA and Proteus Ocean Group have signed a formal agreement to use the “underwater space station of the ocean,” PROTEUS™, to advance marine science, research and education. Together, NOAA and Proteus Ocean Group seek to develop a deeper understanding of the ocean environment and reveal solutions to some of the planet’s most pressing concerns, including those related to climate change.

The Saildrone Surveyor, the world’s largest uncrewed ocean mapping vehicle, has completed a months-long survey around Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and off the coast of California as part of a multi-agency public-private partnership funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to address ocean exploration gaps in remote areas with uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs).

NOAA Research, through NOAA Ocean Exploration, has awarded a $3.5 million, five-year contract to Integrated Systems Solutions, Inc. (ISS) to establish the National Oceanographic Partnership Program Office to support NOAA and the Navy Office of Naval Research (ONR) in their role in jointly co-chairing the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) Federal Interagency Working Group (IWG).

This summer, take the plunge and join NOAA Ocean Exploration and partners as we explore along the longest mountain range in the world: the mid-ocean ridge. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge portion of this range spans the north-south length of the Atlantic Ocean and stretches an impressive 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles). This largely unexplored underwater mountain range has captivated the imagination of explorers for more than a century. It’s time to unlock some of its secrets – LIVE!

Beginning May 15, the public can join NOAA scientists and partner researchers as they explore the shipwreck of the USS Monitor, natural reefs and the maritime cultural landscape off the North Carolina coast. The two week mission — titled “Valor in the Atlantic” — will use state-of-the-art, remotely-piloted submersibles and other technologies to explore notable sites surrounding America’s first National Marine Sanctuary.

During a recent expedition on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, an engineer on shore, over a thousand miles away from the ship, successfully piloted a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to explore the deep ocean. A first for NOAA Ocean Exploration and the Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration, this test of piloting an ROV from shore opens new possibilities for deep-ocean exploration.

The University of New Hampshire’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (UNH CCOM), as a member of the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute (OECI), funded by NOAA Ocean Exploration, has taken delivery of an iXblue DriX Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV) and its Universal Deployment System. The autonomous solution will help expand the footprint and efficiency of the OECI’s ocean exploration operations.

NOAA NEFSC has tested iXblue’s SeapiX 3D volume sonar in the Block Island windfarm off the coast of Rhode Island, the first commercial offshore wind farm in the United States. The objective of the evaluation was to observe and monitor the pelagic ecosystem often overshadowed by the demersal and benthic communities in the windfarm areas.

In a world first, a 23-foot Saildrone Explorer equipped with a specially designed “hurricane” wing has collected the first video footage of the extreme weather conditions inside a Category 4 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission is a partnership between Saildrone and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Five vehicles were deployed to better understand the ocean processes that are occurring as hurricane intensity increases, which means collecting data immediately before and during a hurricane.

Fugro has completed fieldwork on a hydrographic survey project for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to update nautical charts off the northern coast of Unimak Island, Alaska. Located in the Bering Sea, the island supports multiple fisheries, a major transit route, and at sea cargo transfers.

Saildrone is announcing a new mission to deploy five uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) from the US Virgin Islands in August to gather key data throughout the 2021 Tropical Atlantic hurricane season. The USVs will be equipped with specially designed “hurricane wings” to enable them to operate in extreme conditions. Saildrones are the only USVs capable of collecting this data and are designed to withstand winds over 70 mph and waves over 10 feet, which occur during a hurricane weather system. The five saildrones will sail into the paths of hurricanes to provide valuable real-time observations for numerical hurricane prediction models and to collect new insights into how these large and destructive weather cells grow and intensify.