About | NOAA’s Aquarius Undersea Laboratory
Facilities

skip repetitive navigation

about aquarius : facilities

Aquarius Undersea Laboratory
Six aquanauts housed during one to two week missions, about 4 miles offshore Key Largo in 60 feet of water at the base of Conch Reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

• 80-ton cylindrical steel chamber, 43 feet long and 9 feet in diameter.
• 118 ton baseplate anchored to the seabed
• 8 exterior viewports
• 2 pressurized compartments or “locks” with separate life support control and communications; a main lock with kitchen, work area and 6-person bunkroom; an entry lock with large workspace.
• Backup high pressure air, oxygen, CO2 removal, and medical supplies
• Wet porch with open moon pool entryway and diver staging area
• Real-time communications via Internet, video and cell phone
• Undersea "excursion line" rope navigation system
• Specially designed diving gear with twin 100 cuft scuba tanks and safety equipment, as well as umbilical diving with full facemasks/hard hats with communications and helmet cams

Life Support Buoy and Ocean Observing Platform
Power generation, air compressors, wireless communications/telemetry array, and ocean observing capabilities including water temperature, salinity, chlorophyll, waves, and currents.

Waystations
3 High-pressure air supplied undersea stations located as far as 1000' away from the habitat, allowing divers to communicate to the habitat and refill their scuba tanks while working on nearby sandy or coral reef areas.

Shore Base
Aquarius monitoring station/“watch desk”, fast response and workboats, small boats for daily operations, dive lockers, workshops, dormitory, wet and dry laboratories, and emergency recompression chamber.

Telecommunications

• 155 Mbps Wireless Bridge from Buoy to Shore, DS3 link to Internet
• Multiple video feeds via web cams in and outside Aquarius
• Polycom and Vbrick video conferencing and broadcast capabilities
• Phone, broadband Internet and diver underwater communications

The Aquarius Reef Base is owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and is operated by the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW).

For more information, check out NURC's Facilities section.

©  All Rights Reserved | | maintained by Thomas Potts (pottst@uncw.edu)