“Procedure Titanic”: U.S. turns to satellite technology to detect icebergs

It was the “unsinkable ship” right up until it was not.  

10 minutes ahead of the maiden voyage of the Titanic ended in calamity, a radio operator aboard the nearby SS Californian signaled that there was an iceberg in the ship’s path. The warning was dismissed, and the enormous collision that followed cost more than 1,500 life, prompting a wave of maritime improvements: sonar and radar navigation functions, lifeboat drills and the generation of the International Ice Patrol (IIP.)

Now, 110 yrs following the sinking of the Titanic, the U.S. govt is developing a new technological innovation which is built to detect and report icebergs to the maritime community.  

“Operation Titanic,” spearheaded by the Office of Homeland Security’s Science and Engineering Directorate, will fuse satellite-dependent radar imagery with ship reporting programs to allow the U.S. Coast Guard to recognize glacial masses all through the North Atlantic Ocean in real time.  

Floating icebergs like the one particular the Titanic struck on April 15, 1912, continue to pose navigational dangers today for ships, oil rigs and armed forces assets, states Kathryn Coulter Mitchell, the DHS senior formal undertaking the responsibilities of the less than secretary for science and technological innovation, told CBS News.

“The Titanic actually struck the iceberg at a latitude equivalent to the Massachusetts place,” Coulter Mitchell claimed. “All those of us in this mission house will not usually comprehend just how significantly south, how prevalent the iceberg mission is.” 

The 16-person IIP is funded by 17 nations bordering the trans-Atlantic, but is operated by the U.S. Coast Guard through ice time, from February via July

The patrol at first relied on cutters deployed by the U.S. Coastline Guard to study icebergs but switched to aircraft checking immediately after Environment War II. Currently, the IIP pilots 9-day aircraft missions each individual two months.

“Procedure Titanic” will mark a “finish departure from [U.S. Coast Guard’s] several a long time of traveling mounted-wing aircrafts to track down icebergs,” explained Coast Guard Commander Marcus Hirschberg with the International Ice Patrol. . 

“Aerial ice reconnaissance” routinely provides up to a lot more than $10 million in once-a-year charges for the U.S. Coast Guard. Further than the price tag tag, C-130J aircrafts that fly bi-weekly missions – roughly 500 plane hours for every year – are also the U.S. Coast Guard’s most highly sought right after aviation assets.  

“We are going to get a whole lot extra bang for our buck at the time we can use people plane hours for disaster reaction, counterdrug operations, migrant functions and other regions,” Hirschberg extra.