The Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) will begin its journey on 6 September 2020 and cross the Atlantic Ocean, from Plymouth to Plymouth. Like its namesake in 1620, MAS will rely to some extent on favourable weather to complete its crossing as it will be powered by state-of-the-art hybrid propulsion system, utilizing wind, solar, state-of-the-art batteries, and a diesel generator. MAS will carry three research pods containing myriad sensors that scientists will utilize to conduct persistent, ground-breaking research in meteorology, oceanography, climatology, biology, marine pollution and conservation, and autonomous navigation. MAS is being coordinated through a partnership lead by ProMare, a non-profit charity established to promote marine research and exploration throughout the world. The research pods will be coordinated by Plymouth University, a world-leading centre of excellence for marine and maritime education, research and innovation.

An autonomous boat under developments could be the first ship to cross the Atlantic that is able to navigate around ships and other hazards by itself. The Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) is an autonomous vessel due to depart from Plymouth in England on the fourth centenary of the original Mayflower voyage, on 6 September 2020, with its destination Plymouth, USA. The project was put together by marine research and exploration company ProMare in an effort to expand the scope of marine research. The boat will carry three research pods equipped with scientific instruments to measure various phenomena such as ocean plastics, mammal behaviour or sea level changes. IBM has now joined the initiative, and it will supply technical support for all navigation operations.

Understanding local currents in the North Atlantic region of the ocean is a key part of modelling heat transfer and global climate patterns. Satellites provide a surface signature of the temperature of the ocean with a high horizontal resolution while in situ autonomous probes supply high vertical resolution, but horizontally sparse, knowledge of the ocean interior thermal structure. The objective of this paper is to develop a methodology to combine these complementary ocean observing systems measurements to obtain a three-dimensional time series of ocean temperatures with high horizontal and vertical resolution. Within an observation-driven framework, we investigate the extent to which mesoscale ocean dynamics in the North Atlantic region may be decomposed into a mixture of dynamical modes, characterized by different local regressions between Sea Surface Temperature (SST), Sea Level Anomalies (SLA) and Vertical Temperature fields. Ultimately we propose a Latent-class regression method to improve prediction of vertical ocean temperature.

The C-130 Hercules is the most versatile aircraft in aviation history. From landing at the world's highest airstrip in the Himalayas to taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the aircraft is celebrated for its unsurpassed versatility, performance and mission effectiveness. Today, 70 countries rely on the C-130 for search and rescue, peacekeeping, medical evacuations, scientific research, military operations, aerial refueling and humanitarian relief. More than 2,500 C-130s have been produced to date. The worldwide operational fleet includes legacy C-130 models as well as the current production variant – the C-130J Super Hercules.

The voyage is expected to take about 35 days and could prove that ships never really needed humans in the first place. They call Maxlimer a robot ship. But a more apt name could also be a ghost ship. Because if you came across it during one of its seafaring journeys, no humans would be onboard. SEE ALSO: Is This New Submarine the World's Best Aquatic War Machine?

Scientists mimicked the neural networks of the brain to map phytoplankton types in the Mediterranean Sea. A new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans presented a new method of classifying phytoplankton that relies on artificial intelligence clustering. Phytoplankton blanket surface waters of the world's oceans, and pigments in their cells absorb certain wavelengths of light, like the chlorophyll that gives plants their green color. In the Mediterranean Sea, where the latest study focused its efforts, an array of phytoplankton species bloom throughout the year. Past research has mined satellite images of ocean color in the Mediterranean for common pigments found in phytoplankton.

This article explores the concepts of ocean wave multivariate multistep forecasting, reconstruction and feature selection. We introduce recurrent neural network frameworks, integrated with Bayesian hyperparameter optimization and Elastic Net methods. We consider both short- and long-term forecasts and reconstruction, for significant wave height and output power of the ocean waves. Sequence-to-sequence neural networks are being developed for the first time to reconstruct the missing characteristics of ocean waves based on information from nearby wave sensors. Our results indicate that the Adam and AMSGrad optimization algorithms are the most robust ones to optimize the sequence-to-sequence network. For the case of significant wave height reconstruction, we compare the proposed methods with alternatives on a well-studied dataset. We show the superiority of the proposed methods considering several error metrics. We design a new case study based on measurement stations along the east coast of the United States and investigate the feature selection concept. Comparisons substantiate the benefit of utilizing Elastic Net. Moreover, case study results indicate that when the number of features is considerable, having deeper structures improves the performance.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - A SpaceX shipment arrived at the International Space Station on Monday with a "cosmic catch" by a pair of Canadians. The Dragon capsule delivered 5,500 pounds (2,500 kg) of equipment and experiments. Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques used the station's big robot arm -- also made in Canada -- to capture the Dragon approximately 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the North Atlantic Ocean. An external cable that normally comes off during launch dangled from the capsule, but it did not interfere with the grappling. "Welcome on board, Dragon," Saint-Jacques radioed.

Total SA plans to start a digital factory in the coming weeks to tap artificial intelligence in a bid to save hundreds of millions of dollars on exploration and production projects, according to an executive. The use of artificial intelligence to screen geological data will help identify new prospects, and shorten the time to acquire licenses, drill and make discoveries, Arnaud Breuillac, head of E&P, said at a conference organized by IFP Energies Nouvelles in Paris on Friday. It will also help optimize the use of equipment and reduce maintenance costs, he said. The digital factory will employ between 200 and 300 engineers and build on successful North Sea pilot projects, Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said at the same event. It will also be a way to attract "young talent" to the industry.

SpaceX says it lost the Falcon Heavy's center core after'rough sea conditions' caused it to topple over as it was being transported back to the Florida coast. Elon Musk's rocket company managed to make history on Thursday when it landed three boosters back on Earth for the first time, following the Falcon Heavy megarocket's successful second launch into space. But as ocean swells continued to rise, wave heights caused the center core to fall off of the company's drone ship, dubbed'Of Course I Still Love You,' which is stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, according to the Verge. SpaceX says it lost the Falcon Heavy's center core (pictured) after'rough sea conditions' caused it to topple over as it was being transported back to the Florida coast'Over the weekend, due to rough sea conditions, SpaceX's recovery team was unable to secure the center booster for its return trip to Port Canaveral,' SpaceX said in a statement. 'As conditions worsened with eight to ten foot swells, the booster began to shift and ultimately was unable to remain upright.