The Hindu : International : Submarine robot lost in sea

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005

International

International

Submarine robot lost in sea

London: Lost: much loved robot submarine, last seen under 200 metres of Antarctic ice last Wednesday, answers to the name Autosub. The £1.5-million British unmanned research submarine was investigating the waters below the Fimbul ice shelf when it became trapped. Scientists don't know what went wrong, but say the submarine is stuck and unlikely to be recovered. Gwyn Griffiths, an ocean engineer at the U.K.'s Southampton Oceanography Centre, who helped to design Autosub, said: ``It isn't going to come back. We've lived with this vehicle for eight years and it's done 382 missions. But every time we put it out, there's a chance it isn't going to return. It was sort of inevitable.'' Scientists sent the submarine under the ice shelf, one of the most inaccessible and poorly understood known environments on earth, to collect information about the role of the ocean in climate change. —

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