NASA/KSC - ECOS AQUATIC TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

The exploration of space and the earth’s ocean have a common denominator.  They are both hostile and remote environments for human beings.  They are both exotic environments requiring ingenious technologies for successful exploration.  It is the objective of the KSC Aquatic Research and Development Program to develop new technologies and methods of exploring aquatic environments.  It is only through cost effective and robust technologies that a permanent human presence can be realized within the ocean, or space.  Although great strides have been made in space exploration and in unmanned and manned vehicle penetration of our solar system, similar strides have not taken place in ocean exploration.  More men have walked on the surface of the moon than have traveled to the deepest points of the ocean.  More progress must be made in developing ocean technologies that will allow human presence and study of the world ocean. 

One of the greatest challenges in ocean science is the study of mobile and elusive organisms that can detect the presence of humans and their machines. These organisms are imbedded in a viscous, dense mobile fluid that absorbs most electromagnetic energies we so commonly use in terrestrial environments.  This medium and organismic behavior presents unique technological  problems for both materials and mechanics. These technological problems escalate when deploying permanent manned and unmanned sensing and processing systems beneath the ocean’s surface.

At the Kennedy Space Center we are developing an R & D capability for a variety of underwater systems beginning simply with acoustic arrays and remotely operated underwater vehicles. Sound is a preferred communication mode for most marine organisms from crustaceans to fish and mammals.  In the ocean sound energy attenuates less than light and, therefore, can penetrate great distances across ocean basins. KSC sound research is focused on detecting fish and marine mammal communication as it relates to intra and interspecific interactions, reproductive behaviors, predation and escape from predation.  Human sound production in aquatic environments is also under study.  The acoustic technologies developed will eventually take advantage of passive and active systems for detecting marine organisms and studying their behavior continuously in remote environments.  This will include human behavior as human activities relate to protected aquatic environments.  These acoustic technologies will have direct application to security zones and marine protected area management (MPAs).    

Three major marine protected areas occur within or adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center: (1) Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (MINWR); (2) Canaveral National Seashore (CNS); (3) and the Oculina Habitat Area of Particular Concern (OHAPC).  The protected portions of KSC are among the oldest in the United States.  The OHAPC is one of the most recent.  All of these areas contain aquatic environments and organism communities which are virtually unknown when it comes to temporal and spatial changes in aquatic invertebrate, fish, reptilian and mammalian populations.  All can be accessed with the appropriate technologies.

NASA R & D work through the KSC Development and Integration Laboratory has produced a Passive Acoustic Monitoring System (PAMS) which will allow monitoring of underwater sounds in remote aquatic environments to depths of 1,000 m.  This system is sufficiently robust that a number of environmental sensor systems may be integrated into a single portable unit.  Deployment duration is dependent on preprogrammed sensor and computer activity rates.  Initial sea trials were conducted during the NOAA Ocean Exploration sponsored Islands in the Stream Program during August and September 2001.  The PAMS was deployed at an grouper spawning site used for research over the past 25 years.  Groupers are soniferous, particularly when conducting prenuptial displays associated with social interactions, sex reversal and spawning. 

The most comprehensive NASA/KSC - Dynamac study of sound production during spawning conducted to date was one supported by the USGS - Biological Resources Division and the Canaveral National Seashore which targeted the most valuable fishery species within the MPAs of the Cape Canaveral and KSC area.   These are the red drum, spotted seatrout, black drum, weakfish and silver perch fisheries of the Indian River, Mosquito and Banana River Lagoons. Males of all of these species produce very loud sounds in large aggregations formed after sunset at particular locations within the MPAs.  They call for approximately 3-4 hrs each evening during the spawning seasons.  These calls attract females to the spawning site where large volumes of eggs and sperm are released into the water column.  These spawning sites are critical to the maintenance of fish populations and a healthy long term fishery. Recent USFWS and NOAA/NMFS studies have demonstrated that the KSC is one of the most productive MPAs in the southeastern United States producing more world record fishes than any other estuarine site in the region. 

Most KSC research has been supported both by NASA and partnerships with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.  Ongoing studies include isolation and characterization of calls from endangered grouper species, the goliath grouper, warsaw grouper and the speckled hind.  This latter work is with Dr. Anne Marie Eklund at the NOAA Southeastern Fishery Center in Miami and includes PAMS technology development and deployment at spawning and aggregation sites. Future work with NASA/NOAA support is proposed which will include PAMS array development, ROV (remotely operated vehicle) and AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) development for acoustic, environmental and visual surveys.

 In addition to the NASA KSC - NOAA collaborations undersea technology development programs within various NASA centers are also underway with the most recent being a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) modification and upgrade of Kevin Delin’s Sensor Web for deployment of sensors underwater within the upper Banana River Lagoon adjacent to the Space Shuttle Launch Pad 39A.  The JPL Sensor Web and the KSC PAMS array deployment will complement one another in providing a powerful continuous underwater monitoring system for both environmental and biological activity.

NASA KSC researchers include Michael Lane, Steve Van Meter of the Development and Integration Laboratory, Joe Bartoszek of the KSC Business Development Office, Dr. John Sager of the KSC CELS program, while Dr. R. Grant Gilmore, Senior Aquatic Scientist with ECOS is the lead principal investigator for science applications at KSC & beyond.