Delivery is scheduled for late this year for the Neil Armstrong and early next year for the Sally Ride. Once completed, the Neil Armstrong will be operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the Sally Ride will be managed by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography under charter agreements with the Office of Naval Research.
“Research ships remain the indispensible tool for oceanography,” said Dr. Frank Herr, ONR director, Ocean Battlespace Sensing Department. “These new ships to be operated by Scripps and Woods Hole will enable basic research to create global prediction of the ocean-atmosphere system. Navy and the nation will benefit through this new multidisciplinary knowledge.”
National security research objectives include exploring science and technology in the areas of oceanographic and meteorological observations, modeling and prediction in the battlespace environment; submarine detection and classification; and mine warfare applications for detecting and neutralizing mines in both the ocean and littoral environment.
As seagoing laboratories supporting research and education, the new ships will feature powerful research instrumentation to fuel scientific exploration, including mapping systems, sensors and profilers that will investigate features from the seafloor to the atmosphere.
The sister vessels meet the latest standards in shipbuilding technology, complying with the highest safety standards and providing unprecedented capabilities for advanced oceanographic research, according to Seattle-based Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering company Guido Perla & Associates, Inc., which is responsible for basic design, regulatory design and detail/production engineering.
Both ships will be supporting scientists with ongoing research worldwide, including in the Atlantic, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean regions in a wide variety of missions.