Glider test underway

The Stennis Space Center-based Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command's USNS Pathfinder, T-AGS 60, embarked littoral battlespace sensing (LBS) gliders Oct. 21 while ported at Naval Base San Diego. The unmanned undersea vehicles will undergo at-sea testing until Nov. 6. The Battlespace Awareness and Information Operations Program Office for Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command will be acquiring and providing up to 150 LBS gliders for deployment aboard the Navy's seven T-AGS ships. For the first time the gliders will be tested at a depth of 1,000 meters to characterize the sea floor at 3,500 meters. Gliders, which have no propeller, travel in a saw-tooth pattern using changes in buoyancy for propulsion, The ability to employ multiple gliders will be a "force multiplier" in terms of gathering a vast amount of data for the same operating cost. (Source: NNS, 10/27/10)