In preparation for the deployment this evening, the piloting team has pulled together some assets to help things go as smoothly as possible.
The planned deployment location is approximately 3202.8833 11450.9667 and so the first two way points will be set to 3131.03344 1140.4334 and then 3117.8167 11055.7833
Red line: presumed deployment
Yellow line: 110deg East
Finally here we have the ship traffic density plot for the area:
Force Wind Sea & Honor
Just after 9pm tonight, the crew in Australia deployed Challenger to kick off the circumnavigation of the Indian Ocean.
Over the weekend the plan is make our way towards open waters, snaking through the canyon and out to sea following the list of way points highlighted above.
Force Wind Sea & Honor
The lab in Australia had a number of esteemed visitors today to see RU29 off before she began her circumnavigation of the Indian ocean. For good luck, the group re-christened the glider Challenger (RU29) with Indian Ocean water at the University of Western Australia’s glider port before deployment on its first leg of a planned Indian Ocean circumnavigation. L to R: Chip Haldeman, Rutgers glider pilot; Nick D’Adamo, Head – Perth Programme Office of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO and IOC IIOE-2 Coordinator; Scott Glenn, Rutgers Professor; Charitha Pattiaratchi, University of Western Australia Professor; Dr. Christopher Back, Liberal Senator for Western Australia and Chair, Senate Foreign Affairs, Defense & Trade Legislation Committee; and Dennis Stanley, UWA Glider Pilot. On board the glider are flags from participating nations, including the United States, Australia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Spain, Germany, Brazil and South Africa, plus a challenge coin from NOAA Administrator, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan.
The deployment which was originally scheduled for tonight has been delayed until Friday evening
Force Wind Sea & Honor
On Monday (Eastern)/Tuesday (Australia), Scott Glenn and Chip Haldeman arrived in Perth Australia for a long week of prep work for Challenger’s next mission: to circumnavigate the Indian Ocean. The plan is to take 29 and fly from Perth to Sri Lanka passing by Indonesia; Then Sri Lanka to South Africa passing by Reunion Island; and then making the return trip from South Africa to Perth over the next few years.
Throughout the week, Chip and Scott will work with KK and Dennis to make final adjustments on ballast before the planned deployment Thursday evening
KK and Dennis in front of their new data display wall
Chip Installs the new thruster on RU29
The flags of each nation involved with the mission are stored inside of the glider for the duration of the flight
An official NOAA Challenger Coin given to the Challenger Mission by Dr. Kathryn Sullivan is also mounted on the inside of the glider
Force Wind Sea & Honor
After finishing the thruster tests last week and setting the new way point to 47˚, 20˚ , Silbo finally caught a break in the current and picked speed back up. Through the weekend we started to see numbers again up in the 30 km/day; speeds we havent seen in months!
This afternoon the way point was then pushed further to the south east to 47N, 18W to cut between the cold eddy to the north and the warm eddy to the south east.
As for challenger, on friday the glider was scheduled to leave the states and fly to Australia where it will then be placed on a truck to perth. Early next month the glider is then slated to be deployed in the eastern Indian ocean and set forth on its next circumnavigation around the Indian Ocean.
Force Wind Sea & Honor
As Silbo continues to try and make his way towards the UK, the westward current that has provided resistance to his progress over the past month continues.
Despite making some progress to the north, eastward progress continues to be slow. Looking to the models, we are in an area of uncertainty where each of the models shows a cold core signal, but the exactly location varies output to output.
Copernicus 10/10/2016
HYCOM 10/10/2016
OSCAR 10/7/2016
RTOFS 10/10/2016
In other news, on friday RU29 left Rutgers after final checkouts to be shipped to Australia in preparation for its next mission: to circumnavigate the Indian Ocean
Flags of the Four main nations that participated in the recovery
RU29 in the Zodiac
RU29 on the Algoa
Freshman Undergraduate Student Cassidy describes the recovery to fellow Rutgers students
On March 31 2016, RU29, Challenger was recovered by a team of scientists and students off the coast of South Africa, completing the circumnavigation of the South Atlantic. When the team arrives back on land tomorrow afternoon, we will get more details on the recovery.
Force Wind Sea & Honor
Early this morning, Antonio sent over this picture of the boat as the team was moving the equipment on board and preparing to set sail.
The glider is currently 230 nautical miles from Cape Town, so the team will have about a full days steam to get on location. If all goes well, early tomorrow they will be on location and preparing for recovery. After 282 days at sea, its time to get this glider out of the water
Force Wind Sea & Honor
After spending the weekend following Antonio’s waypoint, our luck continued to get better as the currents continued to shift in our favor rotating from West to North North-East.
With this favorable current, 29 managed to get back up to speeds of 1km/hr vs the 1km/10 hrs progress we were making last week.
By Monday however, the current continued to rotate around – the result of how hectic the landscape is of quickly moving eddies through the area. Even with the 180˚ change in current direction, the glider continues to make good progress in the direction of Cape Town.
With the latest forecasts, the British GLOSEA is the closest to what the glider is reporting, showing a medium sized warm eddy to the south of 29 resulting in the currents shifting back to the west.
GLOSEA Mar 29
Since recovery is quickly approaching, we have shortened 29s flight pattern to 4 yos and turned the ctd on for both up and down casts so we can gather a nice data set upon approach for data comparison with the recovery vessels on board ctd.
Finally looking at the AIS data in google earth, the RV Algoa is waiting at the port for this weeks activities
Over the past day, the team has been arriving in Cape Town and this afternoon will be meeting at the Algoa to load up some equipment and discuss the plan for recovery. Then, weather permitting, the team will set sail early tomorrow with the intent of arriving at the glider early Thursday where they will get the glider out of the water after 282 days at sea and 6700 km.
Force Wind Sea & Honor
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