Glider Launches

Although not RU29, I took part in the launching of glider RU28, I hope this post can show what a typical glider launch is about.

To start we drove to the Belmar Marina in Belmar, NJ, there we unloaded a truck with all of our equipment and met with a local captain that would take us to a designated launching point off the coast. On this trip we had three main pieces of equipment to use, the glider, a drifter and a CastAway.

The glider is described in past posts, the drifter passively collects data from the currents and sends its location from a onboard GPS back to Rutgers, and the CastAway collects temperature, dissolved oxygen among others.

The glider is the exact same as RU29, the drifter was made by a local middle school's science class, and the cast away is standard measurement to take.

                                               With the DIY drifter

                                               Preparing the CastAway

         

                                                           Launching

                                                     RU28

Update for Late November

RU29 has begun its journey west towards Brazil started on November 18th. RU29 is making very good time, going speeds upwards of 30 km/day. Using the turtle paths that were mapped by researchers from Brazil, our journey has become much easier to plan. Beginning on November 25th, RU29 has left the border and is now in international waters. As of right now, the glider is still going west, but in a few days, roughly 3, it will turn south and do its best to head to Sao Paulo.

                                              Planned Path to Sao Paulo

In going further west during this week, we are hoping to avoid the volcanic seamounts that line the path. Although none of these mounts are tall enough to physically disturb the glider, the magnetic fields may interfere with the guidance. Though, in avoiding the seamounts, we will put ourselves in a good position to ride the currents south.

                                       Projected Current Path

Current Pathway

The current plan for RU29's route is to head west in order to avoid sea mounts that could possibly damage the glider. During this Westward journey, the glider will stay in the lanes often used by sea turtles in order to collect data from them via a fish finder instrument on board the glider. Another thing to take into account in the waters near Ascension Island is when to surface. Because there are flying fish in the area that lay their eggs on anything that floats, the glider will not surface except during the day. After heading west in order to avoid the sea mounts, RU29 will wheel around towards the South West where it will eventually reach its final destination, Sao Paulo Brasil.

The green and red lines present the paths taken by the sea turtles during their migration

Another map of the path the Green Turtles take when they migrate
http://www.ascension-island.gov.ac/government/conservation/our-species/marine-turtles/

General Glider FAQ: Types of Gliders

 Gliders

• Offering long range and endurance using environmental energy via a thermal engine, the thermal glider can be deployed at a maximal depth of 1200 meters for a period of 5 years. It has a 40,000-km range.
• It's flexible mobility is capable of moving to specific locations and depths and occupying controlled spatial and temporal grids. The glider is able to move both horizontally and vertically. 
• The long-range and duration capabilities of Slocum gliders make them ideally suited for subsurface sampling at the regional scale. Carrying a wide variety of sensors, they can be programmed to patrol for weeks at a time, surfacing to transmit their data to shore while downloading new instructions at regular intervals, realizing a substantial cost savings compared to traditional surface ships. 

1. Thermal Gliders - Offering long range and endurance using environmental energy via a thermal engine, the thermal glider can be deployed at a maximal depth of 1200 meters for a period of 5 years. It has a 40,000-km range.

Although thermal gliders have many benefits to using them, they currently put after electric gliders in production and use. They are based on temperature systems in the water and they very from location to locations. Out in the field, of 3 thermal gliders we have used here at Rutgers, 2 went missing and the only successful one that is still used today is the Louis & Clarke glider based in Hawaii. 

2. Electric Gliders - Versatile, maneuverable and powered with alkaline batteries, the electric glider can be deployed for a period of 15 to 30 days at a 600- to 1500-km range. Its flexible payload allows it to carry customized sensors. The coastal glider can be operated to depths of 4–200 meters and the 1-km glider to 1000 meters.

These gliders are majorly used, as they're powered on batteries that give us a more reasonable amount of time as to when they will fail and find out a suitable place to recover them and replace the batteries.
 RU29 is an electric glider 

More on RU29 Recovery

We were able to have a quick phone call in class from Scott on 11/2. Scott, Chip, and Chuck arrived to Georgetown, Ascension and managed to find "almost" internet at a hotel. 

As for the glider, there was a lot of corrosion on it. The dummy plug on the glider needs to be replaced, and luckily there happened to be an extra one packed. 

Chip and Chuck have been working on the repairs.There were a lot of barnacles on the gliders and ended up attaching more towards the tape on the glider. The front nose, tail ring, the CTD, and body were all painted over, and tape was put over the rough tape areas.

The glider had to be tested in a small inlet in order to get ballasted in a tidal pool. 

Afterwards, the glider was deployed on a reasonably calm day. The glider was deployed 5 miles out to sea in 600 meters of water towards northwest to get to the deepest parts of the water.          

         

The past 24 hours, the glider has been making very good progress. It has gone 26 kilometers. The plan is to head to Brazil and head straight down the coast to Sao Paulo.

                                                                    

This has been considered the “miracle mission.” A multitude of things happened that ended up still working.

On the way to Brazil, we'll be trying to to minimize time on surface at night. The glider ends up becoming a nest for flying fish as they weave and jump over it.

Gliders and the Public

As gliders gain more popularity, it is possible for them to be counted on for missions commissioned by a company. In the case of RU 29, it was recently featured in an article of the NY Times which garnered attention for the Rutger's program. For example, one company contacted the program in hopes of gathering data on the sea floor. The gliders present many opportunities for research and as they grow more popular companies will increasingly become interested in what the program has to offer. Another example of outside parties being interested in the data being collected by the gliders is a conservation society on the island of Ascension. The beaches of Ascension Island are where the largest number of Green Turtle mating occurs. The glider is equipped with a fish tracker and this was of great interest to the conservation group because they could gather data on the tagged turtles. So, it is in ways like these that the public can take advantage of the program in order to gather the data they need.

Currents

Currents in the ocean as defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary are continuous movements of water or air in the same direction. It is important to take currents into account when you are planning the route of your glider in order to come up with the fastest route to follow. This is necessary because a glider only has a certain amount of time it can deploy because of the limited space for batteries. By using the currents to your advantage, you can travel a greater distance without having to worry about whether or not the glider will be able to complete the journey. In the case of the RU 29 mission, we have to be careful when planning the route as we get closer to the coast of Brasil. This is because the currents split into one that heads north and one that heads south