Category: Challenger Mission (Page 17 of 37)

Hey All,

Over the past two days, Dave Tina and Chip have been running missions and pouring over data to determine the state that Challenger is in after what Antonio and the team has called her ‘siesta’.  These tests have included a process called ‘stepping down’ which included running dives to 60m, 400m, 750m, single dives to 1000m and now dual 1000m dives.  These have all been successful which has now led to focusing on the steering and energy budget.  The steering has proven to be a little out of whack, similar to what we saw off the coast of South Africa, but there is speculation this will be reduced after we reduce the throw on the pump and slow the glider down a bit- a project for early this week.

On top of the excellent news that Challenger is not only in contact with us again, but capable of flying, yesterday she became the first RU glider to Cross the Prime Meridian!

To the North, Silbo is continuing to drift at the will of the surface currents. Luckily, these currents are continuing to overall flow in the northwest direction, pushing Silbo slowly but surely towards the Caribbean.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Hey All,

So just when we thought we have had enough bad news after last weeks issues with Challenger, we have now run into complications with Silbo.

Yesterday afternoon, Silbo ran into an issue with his pump, resulting in the ejection weight being triggered, turning Silbo into a drifter. No longer being able to fly, we are now at the will of the surface currents which has resulted in the c shape turn to the North.

One stroke of luck we have had, is the research ship Knorr is currently just 200 nautical miles north of Silbo’s location along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Although we don’t have any details on the research they are doing, they should be in this region for a couple weeks.

We are hoping this surface current persists pushing us northward while the ship is still in the area, that way as long as it is not too inconvenient for them the ship could possibly conduct an emergency recovery of Silbo.

As for Challenger, it has been over 130 hours now since last contact, and we are all still sitting on edge waiting for any word

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Hey All,

So it has now been 4 days since we last made contact with Challenger.  On Friday, a team was assembled and a plan made for if we do hear from the glider.  First we were all added to a list in which if Challenger does have any abort or connection to the Dock Server, everyone on the team will get a message sent to our phones. From there, depending on the persons experience with working with the gliders, they will either open glider terminal and grab hold of the glider to load the new mission files to help Challenger get back on her feet, or immediately contact someone who is more comfortable with the procedure.

As to where Challenger is now, below is a map of surface currents from RTOFS and the MyOcean Models:

What is nice to see, is that both models are matching up nicely.  Both are showing a cold core eddy that based off of Challengers last location, she was in the northwestern sector.  From this information, she most likely is following the rotation of this eddy in the clockwise circulation.  The other possibility is that Challenger could be pulled to the west with current seen in both models.  This could be promising as the current runs towards St Helena.

To the North, Silbo is still pushing along to the Northwest, flying towards the Caribbean.

Recently, Silbo has made it far enough west to enter the area in which MyOcean provides a much higher resolution road map for our use; the data is now provided at 1/12˚.

Although the data is now at a higher resolution, it continues to show the currents flowing in the opposite direction than we hope to fly, which is then confirmed by Silbo’s calculated depth average currents and poor progress.  However, if we continue to fight our way west, we will find the edge of the gyre which should aid us as we try and make some better progress.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Hey All,

Challenger is stepping her way higher up along the VIG ladder as she has now flown over 3,000 km in contribution to the Challenger Mission.  On the scale of the whole plan, 3,000 may not seem like much, but every obstacle we encounter is a valuable learning experience that we will be able to look back on

Another feat that Challenger is on the verge of accomplishing is crossing the Prime Meridian, being the first of our Global Class Gliders to do so.

Looking at Dave’s velocity plot, we have continued to see a decline in our speed in recent days, however the slope of the line is decreasing, signifying that we will level off and possibly spike back up again soon.

To the North, Silbo has been issued a new way point after suggestion from Antonio:

After the slow progress Silbo has been suffering over the past weeks, we have decided to move the way point to the North, hopefully allowing us to take advantage of the northern component of the currents flow similar to what we have done with Challenger previously.  We hope that this will now speed us up a bit so we can make better progress towards the Caribbean.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Hey All

I just want to leave everyone with a quick update on the status of the gliders

Silbo is continuing to find his way through the desert as he fights the strong head current that has been quite persistant in flowing to the east rather than in the direction we had hoped for towards the Caribbean.  As he stands now, there is roughly 1400 km between his last surfacing and Barbados, and with batteries that are still showing enough juice to last us through the end of the year, it merely comes down to finding that ideal path to the west.

Challenger on the other hand is still flying well, with the way point on Ascension, she is continuing to beat her own rough path to the northwest using the northern component of the currents that we were dealt.

As the currents have become a little less favorabel we saw the glider velocities drop down a bit.  However they seem to be leveling off at the moment so we shouldn’t loose too much of our speed.  As of now, we are still maintaining a nice >25 km/ day which will always be useful as we race the battery life on our way across the Southern Atlantic Basin.

Force Wind Sea & Honor