water acoustics, geophysics, and physical oceanography, it is anticipated that ■ 

 they will be increasingly employed in other areas of marine science. 



Undersea Recovery and Man-in-the-Sea 



This portion of the Navy's comprehensive program in ocean engineering 

 is intended to improve the Navy's deep ocean operational capability in sub- 

 marine rescue and escape, search and location, salvage and recovery, and 

 diving operations. The need for such a capability was first emphasized by 

 the loss of the submarine Thresher in 1963. This need was recmphasized in 

 1966 with the loss of an unarmed nuclear weapon off Palomares, Spain, and 

 again in 1968 with the loss of the submarine Scorpion. 



The systems under development in the deep submergence program re- 

 spond to Navy mission requirements for — 



( 1 ) Submarine location, escape, and rescue; 



(2) Object location and small object recovery; 



(3) Man-in-the-sea ; 



(4) A nuclear-powered research and engineering submersible, 

 (NR-1); 



(5) Large object salvage; and 



(6) Deep Submergence biomedicine. 



The submarine location, escape and rescue program is developing a sys- 

 tem which will give the Navy the capability to — 



( 1 ) Locate a distressed submarine ; 



(2) Provide personnel escape techniques and equipment for indi- 

 vidual escapes from depths to 850 feet; and 



(3) Provide an all-weather rescue system, operational to submarine 

 collapse depths using deep submergence rescue vehicles (DSRV's). 



Construction of the first DSRV is complete; the vehicle was launched 

 in January 1970; and an extensive at-sea test program has commenced. 

 Fabrication of DSRV II is nearing completion, and its testing schedule 

 will follow that of DSRV I by about 6 months. DSRV I is scheduled to 

 mate with a simulated submarine in distress, then mate with and be trans- 

 ported by the test and evaluation submarine Salmon, which will be con- 

 figured as a DSRV "mother" submarine. 



Two new catamaran hull submarine rescue ships, capable of transporting 

 and maintaining DSRV's, have been launched. The Pigeon (ASR-21) 

 is scheduled for delivery in late 1970; it will be followed by the Ortolan 

 (ASR-22) in early 197L 



The U.S. Navy has been evaluating the submarine escape and immer- 

 sion equipment being developed by the Royal Navy to determine its suit- 

 ability for use on U.S. submarines. 



The development objective of the object location and small object re- 

 covery system is to develop the capability to locate and recover small objects 

 at depths as great as 20,000 feet. Development of necessary fabrication tech- 

 niques and tests of structural and buoyancy materials are proceeding. The 



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