Category: ru29 (Page 18 of 22)

Hey All

So this week we have seen a pretty interesting shift in the accuarcy of the ocean models we have been using as our road maps for the missions.  For the past few days now, the US model has more accurately depicted the northward flow of the currents recorded by Challenger than the European model has done. With this news, our team has decided to modify our path strategy from what we had previously. Early last week, our plan was to follow the red path outlined below: to keep our way point to the west and ride our way around the cold eddy and find ourselves on the other side prepared to enter the strong northern freeway located to our north. However, we have decided to run an audible and follow what the RTOFS model is showing and try for a north west bearing.  This afternoon we put in a new way point and we hope we will see ourselves make some strong progress with the direction of the currents that Challenger is confirming when she surfaces.

To the north, Silbo continues to push onward as he strives for the southern currents of the mystical warm eddy to the south west.

Here, the US model shows the eddy a little further away than the European model has shown, but both show the formation of the strong southern flux that we hope to soon catch and ride south towards the equator!

Force Wind Sea & Honor

As Challenger continues to make good progress to the west-north west, Dave has continued to analyze the compass and flight statistics of our glider.  As I have mentioned over the past few weeks, we have had a few issues with our steerings routing from a problem with the compass.  Dave Aragon has been working since the beginning fine tuning the flight parameters to get ourselves flying as well as possible.  There is one limitation to completely solving the problem; we are operating with low power mode set to 30 s interval so any unfavorable movements don’t get corrected for until the computer clicks on every 30 s, sometimes leading to overcorrection.  So tomorrow we will run a test flying Challenger at full throttle to see to what extent Dave has eradicated the problem.

While we run the test and through the weekend, Challenger wil continue to pursue the western set way point as we try and cut across the weakest point of the southern flux immediately next to us as we head towards the opposite side of the eddy that leads into the ‘free way’ we will cruse along in the near future.

To the North, Silbo continues to force his way south as the north west current tries to defer his progress resulting in a more lateral movement that we would hope.  Although it may take a little longer, Silbo either way is flying towards the large warm eddy to the south west which will provide the strong southern jet that will carry us south.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Today, our growing fleet hit another mile stone while building towards the completion of the Challenger mission: flying over 10,000 km.  Combined, SIlbo and Challenger have been at sea for 490 days yet we are just getting started.

Down in the Southern Atlantic off the coast of Namibia, Challenger has made a discovery.  After nearly a month of being spot on, the european myocean/mercator ocean model is showing a discrepancy when compared to the depth average currents of Challenger.  However, just in the nick of time the US RTOFS model has stepped up and is showing currents much more similar to that of the glider. A major sigh of relief however is that both models show the strong northern current to our west that we have based our plan of northern progress off of.

To the North, Silbo continues to push onward, forcing his way towards the patch of neutral current that then gives way to the massive southern flux of the eastern side of the warm eddy.

Both the myocean (above) and geoeye/seastar (below)data sets show Silbo is closing in fast on these southerly currents.  Although progress has been slow once we penetrate the jet, we hope to have a nice tail current pushing us along after a very long uphill battle.

Finally I just wanted to leave everyone with the Salinity field for today that Antonio put together from the geoeye/seastar dataset.  In this map we not only can see the super fresh water to the west of the Amazon run off, but we can see the jets to the south that we hope to ride out in the coming weeks.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Hey All

The tests continue for Ru29 as we formulate our plans to make her mission a success.  This evening, we moved the way point to the north west to see how the heading error and fin movement are affected by our compass issues given a heading of 300˚.

A second test we are continuing is that of diving deep.  Checking out the new kml created by Chip which displays the temperature at the bottom of our inflections and shows the temp profile when selected, we can see that the thermocline is at roughly 100m depth.  The past week or so we have been making our top inflections at this depth to get a measure of how much energy this would draw rather than going all the way to the surface.  So far we have seen nearly no change in energy draw and thus we are lowering the inflection depth to 125m that way we can completely avoid the thermocline and available sunlight, thus depleting any biological growth of its necessary resources.

To the North, Silbo just surfaced a few minutes ago and with some quick work by Ben, we were able to get a new way point in.  The new way point is to the east of the previous one, to make a stab at flying more south than west as we have been over the past few days.

This will prevent us from flying into the two miniature eddies directly to our west and dive to the south to try for the arrows that will carry us towards the strong southerly jet in the bottom left corner of the screen.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Hey all

Throughout the day, Challenger has continued to chase the current seen in the Mercator European model depicting a strong flux to the west.  Although the model doesn’t completely agree with what Challenger is recording (very faint southerly current) she continued to make good progress towards the way point.  Tomorrow we will give her a new way point back to the north west so we dont get dragged too far south as we round the edge of the warm core eddy

Similarly. tomorrow I plan to propose a new way point to the Silbo team suggesting a way point shift to the south.  Looking to the map above,  if we continue to follow the current path towards the way point, we run the risk of hitting the wrong side of the eddy we have been chasing.  With a way point shifted further to the south, we also will reduce how Silbo is being pushed to the west and hopefully shift that progress in the southern direction.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

As the night comes to an end, our two long duration gliders continue to pursue their waypoints across the North Atlantic.

To the north, Silbo continues to the South West towards his way point in search of the strong southerly current shown above in the Mercator/MyOcean sea surface currents. As of tonight’s position Silbo is measuring roughly 45 km from the edge of this mystical current.  If this current holds true, this will shoot us south, being the first favorable current in quite a while.  If this occurs, we will then be well on our way towards the equator, and then… Brazil!

To the south, Challenger as well continues to pursue her waypoint: due west.  Now that we have rounded the eastern sector and curled to the north, we hope to fly west along the current created by the eddy field we are in the midst of.  After making some progress west, we hope to catch the strong North jet that is visible in the image below that goes off screen.  We will continue to keep a keen eye on Challenger’s progression through the field and keep everyone updated.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Hey all!

I just want to leave everyone with a quick update before the end of the night.  Today we continued our test of inflecting at depth to get a better handle on how much energy this will draw.  This test will continue for a while so we can get a decent average of our energy consumption

East Component for the MyOcean model

To aid in piloting, I have split the current maps from the myocean model into the east and north components.  Above in the East component map, we can see the pocket of western flowing water to the north west of our current location.  This pocket represents the northern side of the warm eddy that is providing us with the eastern flux Challenger is recording. In the image below if we look at the North component, we can see the two northern jets.  Although the one we are currently in would be great to stick with, it would carry us back across the EEZ through other countries waters.  So with some crafty piloting over the next couple days, we will aim to get into the second jet to the west so we can continue along a safe course tot he north.

North Component for the MyOcean Model

To the North Silbo is continuing on his way closing in on the initial signals of the eddy creating the southern current seen below.  After the progress made over the past day we should begin to see at least a neutral current (if not a southern flux) within the next 5 days.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

So after one month at sea, Challenger has now covered nearly 700km!  Although we have not made as much progress as we had hoped after getting tripped up with our troubles steering, we have learned a lot that will aid us as we continue along with the mission.

Looking to the myocean dataset, Challenger is now just about even with center of the warm core eddy to our west, so over the next day we will most likely move the way point south to cut to the west along the rotation of the eddy.

Through the night, Challenger will be running a new test for us, this one making her top inflections at 100m instead of 20m from the surface.  The purpose of this test is to get an accurate reading on the energy consumption of staying deep on our inflections.  Staying deep like this keeps Challenger out of the reaches of sunlight and in doing so avoiding the areas most teaming with the biology that could slow us down.

To the north, Silbo has run into his own hiccoughs…

Early this morning, Silbo reported some problems that resulted in the mission being reset and Silbo running the ‘initial’ mission.  This resulted in quite a bit of drifting back to the north as we were no longer actively fighting the currents.  But soon after our teammate Ben from TWR was able to grab control of Silbo and get him back on his way with a way point back to the south west.

Now that Silbo stable and back on his way, we turn our focus back to the massive warm eddy we are creeping up on.  Now just 48 km from the first signals of southern flux, we expect to begin feeling the effects within the week

Force Wind Sea &  Honor