Operational Support of Regional Cabled Observatories The MARS Facility

Service and maintenance of a multiuser cabled ocean observatory like the Monterey Accelerated Research System (MARS), will require interesting new capabilities and innovative solutions. This paper will describe some of the new equipment and techniques currently being developed at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). The MARS facility will be supported by MBARI's Marine Operations Division and Support Engineering Group. To maximize success, not only for the science user but also for the facility itself, MBARI will make considerable resources available to the user based on the experiment being conducted and the level of support requested. Local assets include three MBARI-owned vessels, each with different capacities, two ROV systems capable of working in and around the MARS Node, laboratory facilities for testing and assembly of user packages, ten meter deep sea water test tank facilities for testing interfaces with user equipment, and access to engineering and technical resources. In addition to the MBARI assets, UNOLS vessels can be used to provide support for deployment and recovery of science equipment. MBARI has developed a number of tools and methods that work with existing assets, as well as with other public resources available to science users. Some of the initial MARS tasks required are: 1) Launch and recovery of the main electronics/electrical package for maintenance, upgrade, and repair. This is considered a heavy lift task by ROV standards. 2) Once a package is in place, test the science port(s) for conformance to contract obligations regarding power and communications. 3) Deploy and service many different types and styles of science user equipment with techniques based on size and weight of packages. 4) Interconnect science packages to the distribution node from remote locations using several cabling techniques based on power requirements and distance. As MBARI embarks on the MARS facility project, these key tasks are fundamental to establishing operational support for the project