A Preview of Our Next Mission--

Most science stories we encounter in the media are focused on a particular experiment, discovery, or scientist. @Sea wanted to buck that trend on our next mission, and focus instead on the development and deployment of a new scientific instrument. In this case, the instrument is a buoy weighing 100,000 pounds, and its development involved a lot of serious engineering. Engineers play a major role in research whenever they create the tools of science. Their contributions, too often unsung, will be at the center of our upcoming coverage.

Sometime in July, Maritime Communications Services (a subsidiary of Harris Corporation) will be launching the first of its Ocean Net ^TM buoys, and @Sea will be there to cover the buoy's deployment near Andros Island in the Bahamas. In the meantime, we'll be presenting a series of dispatches covering launch preparations, and talking to the engineers who are busy putting the finishing touches on this highly-complex project. We'll get a look at the Engineering Division at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, and see some of the other exciting projects underway in this leading-edge facility. Finally, we'll deliver a live video feed direct to your desktop from cameras mounted on the buoy. As the fleet of Ocean Net ^TM buoys grows, @Sea visitors will be able to travel from buoy to buoy via the Web, looking out over oceans all over the world!

This initial deployment of the Ocean Net ^TM buoy system will provide data for a long-term weather experiment. NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) is using the buoy to compare the sound of rainfall measured at various ocean depths with conventional rainfall measurements at the ocean's surface. This information will provide high quality surface rainfall data over the tropical ocean for use in validating and interpreting satellite rainfall observations. Underwater acoustic rainfall monitoring is an entirely new technology for gathering information about the planet's weather.