MASSMO 4

MASSMO4 will see up to 11 surface and submarine gliders deployed off northern UK out to the Faroe-Shetland Channel. Vehicles will be deployed and recovered from Orkney and from NRV Alliance. The mission will comprise a range of oceanographic data collection, but with a particular focus on passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals and oceanographic features. MASSMO4 will be co-ordinated by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), with research partners including University of East Anglia (UEA), Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) and Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML). The mission will be sponsored by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and will involve close co-operation with the NATO STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) and UK Royal Navy, and will be supported by several additional commercial, government and research partners (see diagram).