NOAA today announced that $7.5 million will be allocated for nine projects in FY 2023 that utilize private sector operated uncrewed marine systems to collect data for NOAA missions.
NOAA Uncrewed Systems Operations Center Director Capt. William Mowitt called uncrewed systems “an increasingly important tool to support NOAA’s mission of understanding and predicting changes in climate, weather, the ocean and coasts, and conserving and managing coastal and marine ecosystems and resources,” adding that the partnership will enable NOAA to “collect data more efficiently” and “support innovation and America’s new blue economy.”
Projects will support activities including hurricane observations, broad meteorological and oceanographic observations, Gulf of Maine seafloor mapping, hydrographic surveys in Alaska, scallop surveys in New England, and coral reef benthic habitat surveys in Hawaii and the Florida Keys.
