Science & Tech
Technology:

ROV (Towsled) Atalanta

ROV Atalanta
Credit
Ocean Exploration Trust

Atalanta was first launched in 2019 and is a smaller version of Argus used in tandem with ROVs Little Hercules or Hercules, where it hovers several meters above in order to provide a bird’s-eye view of the ROV working on the seafloor. Atalanta is also capable of operating as a stand-alone system for wider-scale deepwater survey missions or as a sled for towed sensors like sidescan sonars.

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ROV Atalanta At-a-Glance

General

  •  6,000 meters (19,685 feet)
  •  2.16  meters long × 1.0 meters wide × 1.2 meters tall
  •  1000 kg (2200 pounds) in air.  1700 pounds in water
  •  2 knots
  •  20–30 meters/minute, (65–98 feet/minute) max
  •  Two Tecnadyne Model 1020 1 HP thrusters for heading control

Imaging & Lighting

    • One Insite Pacific Mini Zeus high-definition camera
    • Two mini utility cameras (fixed mounted) 480 line NTSC format
    • Eight Deep Sea Power & Light (LED) LSL-1000 SphereLights

Vehicle Sensors & Navigation

  •  Lord Microstrain 3DM-GX5-25 Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS)
  •  Paroscientific Digiquartz 8CB series
  •  Valeport VA500 500Khz Altimeter 
  •  Mesotech 1071, 675 kHz, 0.5–100 meter range typical 

Scientific Instrument Support

  •  110 V 60 Hz AC, 24 VDC and 12 VDC power options
  •   Ethernet, RS-232