WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Andrew Shepard, expedition leader, National Undersea Research Center, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, N. Car., poses on deck of the Liberty Star with some of the equipment to be used in the Oculina Banks project. The ship will be the site of an undersea expedition to characterize the condition of the deep-sea coral reefs and reef fish populations in the Oculina Banks, a marine protected area, 20 miles offshore of the east coast of Florida. He and other scientists will be deploying an underwater robot, a seafloor sampler, and the Passive Acoustic Monitoring System (PAMS). Dr. Grant Gilmore was co-principle investigator of the PAMS, originally developed by NASA to monitor the impact of rocket launches on wildlife refuge lagoons at KSC. The research is sponsored by NOAA Fisheries. The ship departed from Port Canaveral April 29 and will return May 9.