Underwater robot lost at sea
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announce off the coast of Chile, their pioneering underwater robot named Abe lies in a watery grave today.
The Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE) was one of the first truly independent research submersibles, being both unmanned and un-tethered to its launching ship. While on its 222nd research dive on Friday all contact with the craft was lost, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has announced.
Like a retired criminal in a b-movie, Abe had been brought out of retirement (probably on the promise of ‘one last job’) for a mission to explore the Chile Triple junction – the only place where a spreading mid-ocean ridge is being subducted under a continent.
On only its second dive, the researchers running the vehicle suspect one of the glass spheres used to provide buoyancy suffered a “catastrophic implosion”.
This is the nightmare of operators of these craft, as such an implosion will set off a chain reaction causing all the other spheres to implode, destroying all systems and leaving poor, broken Abe to sink silently to the bottom of the ocean.
“Abe was a vehicle that we’ll always have fond memories of— it was a world-beater in its day,” say Chris German, National Deep-Submergence Facility chief scientist. “In a way, it’s fitting that its demise comes on the job, and that it has gone to be recycled through the Chile subduction zone.”
