After a long night of steaming out to the deployment location roughly 150 miles off shore of Ubatuba, Marcelo Dottori and a team from the University of Sao Paulo deployed RU29 at 5:46 this morning just past the 900m isobath.
After roughly a six month hiatus during which RU29’s hulls were brought back to the US to be replaced, Scott and Chip traveled down to Ubatuba towards the end of May to put the glider back together and run some initial tests while the glider was on land. Then Marcelo and his crew prepared for a window of opportunity where they could safely get out to the deployment site and remain on location until a number test dives could be done to make sure Challenger was flying well before turning back to shore. Dave was then able to run the deployment while remotely contacting Marcelo and controlling the glider from New Jersey.
So far the glider looks to be flying well and is 6 hrs in to a 9 hr mission to 1000m during which she will complete 3 full dives. Tomorrow we will update everyone further as we get more information back from our team
For more information about the Challenger Glider Mission, check out the Challenger Glider Mission Blog
