Southern Ocean

Today we are announcing an important development: Sending our first fleet of saildrones into the Southern Ocean, in partnership with CSIRO, Australia’s pre-eminent national science organization.

Three Saildrone USVs launched from Bluff, NZ, January 2019. Their mission: the first autonomous circumnavigation of Antarctica.

The Southern Ocean is critical for controlling how much CO2 is in the atmosphere, but as the water absorbs more carbon it becomes more acidic—and that could affect the health of a lot of organisms.

Saildrone has partnered with the 1851 Trust to develop a series of data-driven lesson plans on issues related to the 2019 Antarctic Circumnavigation, free for teachers and educators.

Two centuries after the Belgica expedition became the first to survive a winter in Antarctica, Saildrone launched the first autonomous circumnavigation of the Southern Ocean.

Penguins are the most famous of Antarctic seabirds, but the region is home to dozens of pelagic species, including albatrosses, petrels, and terns.

SD-1020 is more than halfway around Antarctica, well on its way toward completing the first autonomous circumnavigation of the Southern Ocean.