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91-598: The original system was capable of oceanic surveillance with the long ranges made possible by exploiting the deep sound channel , or SOFAR channel. An indication of ranges is the first detection, recognition and reporting of a Soviet nuclear submarine coming into the Atlantic through the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap by an array terminating at NAVFAC Barbados on 6 July 1962. The linear arrays with hydrophones placed on slopes within

182-536: A $ 3.5 million annual budget for fundamental research and engineering. During this period he was also technical director of Project Artemis , a very large experimental active sonar system development. In September 1963, Frosch went to Washington, D.C., to work with the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in the U.S. Department of Defense , serving as director for nuclear test detection ( Project VELA ), and then as deputy director of

273-501: A Soviet nuclear submarine west of Norway coming into the Atlantic through the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap. When USS  Thresher sank in 1963, SOSUS helped determine its location. In 1968, the first detections of Victor and Charlie class Soviet submarines were made, while in 1974 the first Delta-class submarine was observed. Also in 1968, SOSUS played a key role in locating

364-618: A cable ship. Kingsport was still with the project. The Navy was requesting four fully functional cable ships, the modernized Albert J. Myer and Neptune and two large new ships. The two new ships were to be designed as modern cable ships, fully capable of cable and survey work. In 1980 consolidation and elimination of expensive individual facilities was made possible by the Wideband Acoustic Data Relay (WADR) first installed at Midway Island in January 1982 so that

455-507: A contract that was signed as a letter contract on 13 November to build a demonstration system. The contract was managed by Bureau of Ships (BuShips) with then Ensign Joseph P. Kelly, later Captain and termed "Father of SOSUS," assigned. An experimental six-element hydrophone array was installed on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas during 1951. Meanwhile, Project Jezebel and Project Michael focused on studying long range acoustics in

546-614: A fully functioning NAVFAC with an additional system for the Atlantic at Barbados and the first of the Pacific systems at San Nicolas Island came in 1957. During 1958 the remainder of the Pacific stations at Naval Facility Point Sur and Centerville Beach in California and Pacific Beach, Washington , and Coos Head near Coos Bay, Oregon were installed. Six Pacific coast systems had been planned but only five Naval Facilities were constructed. The northernmost system off Vancouver Island

637-413: A long range, passive detection system, based on bottom arrays of hydrophones. The system, using equipment termed Low Frequency Analyzer and Recorder and a process termed Low Frequency Analysis and Recording, both with the acronym LOFAR, was to be based on AT&T's sound spectrograph, developed for speech analysis and modified to analyze low-frequency underwater sounds. This research and development effort

728-587: A new type of fixed bottom system, terminus was made at NAVFAC Brawdy, Wales. Stalwart makes first SURTASS operational patrol and system name is changed from SOSUS to Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS). Consolidation continued in 1987 with NAVFAC Whidbey Island, Washington, established with NAVFAC Pacific Beach's acoustic data routed to that facility. During 1991 NAVFAC Guam, Mariana Islands closed. USNS Stalwart and USNS  Worthy  (T-AGOS-14) monohull SURTASS ships were withdrawn with SWATH hull USNS  Victorious  (T-AGOS-19) accepted by

819-565: A research scientist and director of research programs for Hudson Laboratories of Columbia University in Dobbs Ferry, New York , an organization under contract to the Office of Naval Research . Until 1953, he worked on problems in underwater sound, sonar , oceanography , marine geology , and marine geophysics . Frosch was first associate and then director of the laboratories, where he managed 300 employees, two ocean-going research vessels, and

910-406: A second ship setting off explosive charges up to 900 nmi (1,000 mi; 1,700 km) away. Temperature is the dominant factor in determining the speed of sound in the ocean. In areas of higher temperatures (e.g. near the ocean surface), there is higher sound speed. Temperature decreases with depth, with sound speed decreasing accordingly until temperature becomes stable and pressure becomes

1001-403: A single wire for all hydrophones allowed major changes with the prototype installed in 1962 at Eleuthera. The upgrades made possible by the multiplexed coaxial cable were designated Caesar Phase III. Caesar Phase IV was associated with major upgrades in shore processing with Digital Spectrum Analysis (DSA) backfits at the stations replacing original equipment during the late 1960s. In September 1972

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1092-562: A small explosive charge could be used in an active mode to detect the echo off the target. The active mode was named by engineers developing the technique "Julie" after a burlesque dancer whose "performance could turn passive buoys active." Related research, based at Columbia University's Hudson Laboratory, was designated Project Michael . Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps Institution of Oceanography were also tasked to develop an understanding of long-range sound transmission under Project Michael . The need to better understand

1183-497: A third generation coaxial cable, again based on commercial developments at Bell Labs and designated SD-C, was installed for the system terminating at Naval Facility Centerville Beach , California. The SD-C cable was the basis for a fourth generation of sonar sets with installation of the Lightweight Undersea Components (LUSC) involving new shore equipment in 1984. In June 1994 an entirely new cable system

1274-452: A travel time of about 1 hour, 44 minutes and 17 seconds. Within the duct sound waves trace a path that oscillates across the SOFAR channel axis so that a single signal will have multiple arrival times with a signature of multiple pulses climaxing in a sharply defined end. That sharply defined end representing a near axial arrival path is sometimes termed the SOFAR finale and the earlier ones

1365-569: Is an important factor in ocean surveillance. The deep sound channel was discovered and described independently by Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel at Columbia University and Leonid Brekhovskikh at the Lebedev Physics Institute in the 1940s. In testing the concept in 1944 Ewing and Worzel hung a hydrophone from Saluda , a sailing vessel assigned to the Underwater Sound Laboratory , with

1456-418: Is commissioned as the first SURTASS/Low Frequency Active (LFA) surveillance ship in 2000. In 2003 the new Advanced Deployable System (ADS) completes dual array testing. Extensive changes both with shore and sea assets take place over the following years as post Cold War missions change and systems are applied in new ways. Further consolidation takes place such as in 2009 when Joint Maritime Facility, St. Mawgan in

1547-409: Is commissioned. A system wide modernization began in 1972. Argentia became a joint Canadian Forces and U.S. Navy facility. NAVFAC Ramey becomes NAVFAC Punta Borinquen in 1974. Further NAVFACs shut down in 1976 with NAVFACs Punta Borinquen and Nantucket decommissioned. NAVFAC Barbados was decommissioned in 1979. In 1974 Naval Facility Brawdy, Wales was established as the terminus of new arrays covering

1638-500: Is no positive proof that action was the cause, the Yankees moved back to their usual areas and had not moved close to the U.S. coast again at the time of the piece. The original Naval Facilities and later, consolidated, processing centers were high security installations characterized by an outer security fence and gate checkpoint. The terminal buildings within were double fenced with separate entry security. Not all personnel assigned to

1729-521: Is routed to Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF) at Dam Neck. The new Advanced Deployable System enters as a part of IUSS and NAVFAC Brawdy, Wales closes with equipment and operation transferred to Joint Maritime Facility St Mawgan during 1995. During 1996 NAVFAC Keflavik Iceland closes and the new Fixed Distributed System Initial Operational Capability is accomplished. In 1997 the Adak system reverts to "wet storage." USNS  Impeccable  (T-AGOS-23)

1820-585: The "Ash Wednesday" Storm . NAVFAC Argentia got a 2X20 element array in 1963. A 1965 decision to deploy systems to the Norwegian Sea was followed in 1966 with a system terminating at Keflavik, Iceland with the first 3X16 array system while Western Electric installed data links by land line to OCEANSYSLANT and OCEANSYSPAC. New systems were installed during 1968 at Midway Island and Guam . COMOCEANSYSPAC relocated to Ford Island, Hawaii from Treasure Island, California . The shallow water system at Argentia

1911-587: The Juan de Fuca Ridge in time for research vessels to investigate. As a result of that success, PMEL developed its own hydrophones for deployment worldwide to be suspended in the SOFAR channel by a float and anchor system. Mysterious low-frequency sounds , attributed to fin whales ( Balaenoptera physalus ), are a common occurrence in the channel. Scientists believe fin whales may dive down to this channel and sing to communicate with other fin whales many kilometers away. The novel The Hunt for Red October describes

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2002-684: The Maurice Holland Award from the Industrial Research Institute for a paper published in IRI's journal, Research Management . In 1996, his leadership at GM was recognized once more by IRI with the presentation of their official Medal . After retiring, he remained active in scientific and technical policy activities; as a senior research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and

2093-635: The United Nations Environmental Program . With the rank of assistant secretary general of the United Nations, he was responsible for substantive global program activities of the United Nations system and other international activities related to environment matters. While at NASA, Frosch was responsible for overseeing the continuation of the development effort on the Space Shuttle program. During his tenure,

2184-557: The United States Navy began experimenting and implementing the capability to locate the explosion of a SOFAR bomb used as a distress signal by downed pilots. The difference in arrival times of the source at an unknown location and known locations allowed computation of the source's general location. The arrival times form hyperbolic lines of position similar to LORAN . The reverse, detection of timed signals from known shore positions at an unknown point, allowed calculation of

2275-567: The Advanced Research Projects Agency, sharing responsibility for managing a $ 270 million per year program of research and development. In July 1966 he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research and Development, responsible for all Navy programs of research, development, engineering, test and evaluation averaging $ 2.5 billion annually. From January 1973 to July 1975, Frosch served as assistant executive director of

2366-511: The Atlantic and were getting dangerously close. That approach raised the threat level to several SAC bases along the coast. Rather than prosecute the contacts and reveal how closely the system could track the submarines, the SAC bases put more bombers on ready alert assuming the Soviets would notice. The submarines did not withdraw so SAC dispersed the bombers to bases as far away as Texas. Though there

2457-598: The Atlantic. The first major exploitation of the SOFAR channel was for ocean surveillance in a classified program that led to the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). That system remained classified from inception until the fixed systems were augmented by mobile arrays to become the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System with the mission and nature of the system declassified in 1991. Earthquake monitoring through

2548-665: The Bermuda station are maintained by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI). In the recent past SOFAR sources were deployed for special purposes in the RAFOS application. One such system deployed bottom moored sources off Cape Hatteras , off Bermuda and one on a seamount to send three precisely timed signals a day to provide approximately five-kilometre (3.1 mi; 2.7 nmi) accuracy. The first application quickly became of intense interest to

2639-630: The Chief of Naval Operations. With the new, mobile systems Towed Array Sensor System (TASS) and the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) entering the system, the SOSUS name was changed in 1984 to Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) to reflect the change from bottom fixed systems alone. In 1990 officers were authorized to wear IUSS insignia. Finally, with "undersea surveillance" so openly displayed,

2730-478: The NAVFACs with centralized processing at a new type facility, Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF), that by 1981 saw one for each ocean and mass closing of the NAVFACs. As the new mobile systems came on line, the original arrays were deactivated and some turned over for scientific research. The surveillance aspect continues with new systems under Commander, Undersea Surveillance. SOSUS history began in 1949 when

2821-610: The Navy during 1992. That year the system got Chief of Naval Operations tasking to report whale detections. More original NAVFACs closed during 1993 with NAVFACs Centerville Beach, California and Adak, Alaska closing with their acoustic data routed to NAVFAC Whidbey Island. The facility at Whidbey, with multiple systems terminating there became Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF) Whidbey. During 1994 Canadian Forces Shelburne, Nova Scotia closes as does NAVFAC Argentia with HMCS Trinity established at Halifax Nova Scotia with operation as Canadian Forces IUSS Centre (CFIC). NAVFAC Bermuda data

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2912-429: The Navy for reasons other than locating downed air crews. A Navy decision in 1949 led to studies by 1950 recommending the passive sonar potential of the SOFAR channel be exploited for the Navy's Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) effort. The recommendation included that $ 10 million a year be spent on research and development of the system. By 1951 a test array had proven the concept and by 1952 additional stations were ordered for

3003-420: The Navy. Some did so and remained in the system as civil service or contractor personnel. The first women were assigned to NAVFAC Eleuthera when an officer and ten enlisted women were assigned in 1972. Due to the fact that the SOSUS community departed from the usual Navy cultural routine, with repeat assignments within the small community, women were able to serve in a warfare specialty without shipboard duty that

3094-650: The RAINFORM was abandoned and replaced. For much of the system's operation, direct action based on SOSUS contacts was avoided. An example was subject to a box piece in the January 5, 1981 issue of Newsweek titled "A Soviet War of Nerves" concerning an incident from August 1978. An alert to Atlantic Fleet, Strategic Air Command (SAC) and the Pentagon came from "underwater listening devices at several secret Navy installations" that two Yankee class nuclear-armed submarines had left their usual patrol areas 1,200 miles out in

3185-628: The SOFAR channel, low frequencies, in particular, are refracted back into the duct so that energy loss is small and the sound travels thousands of miles. Analysis of Heard Island Feasibility Test data received by the Ascension Island Missile Impact Locating System hydrophones at an intermediate range of 9,200 km (5,700 mi; 5,000 nmi) from the source found "surprisingly high" signal-to-noise ratios , ranging from 19 to 30 dB, with unexpected phase stability and amplitude variability after

3276-464: The SOFAR symphony. Those effects are due to the larger sound channel in which ray paths are contained between the surface and critical depth. Critical depth is the point below the sound speed minimum axis where sound speed increases to equal the maximum speed above the axis. Where the bottom lies above critical depth the sound is attenuated, as is any ray path intersecting the surface or bottom. The channel axis varies most with its location reaching

3367-675: The Sea describes the production arrays as being 1,800 ft (548.6 m) long. In 1954, the order was increased by three more Atlantic stations and an extension into the Pacific, with six stations on the West Coast and one in Hawaii. In September 1954, Naval Facility Ramey was commissioned in Puerto Rico. Others of the first Atlantic phase followed, and in 1957 the original operational array at Eleuthera got an operational shore facility as

3458-456: The Sea , contains a segment at about 9:22 minutes into the film concerning the search for a suitable array location and laying the array. It describes the operational arrays as being 1,800 ft (548.6 m) long. In 1954 ten additional arrays were ordered with three more in the Atlantic, six on the Pacific coast and one in Hawaii. The cable ships Neptune and Albert J. Myer were acquired to support Project Caesar with later addition of

3549-658: The Senate Committee on Armed Services the request for funding of recreational and other support buildings for the Naval Facility Cape Hatteras the Navy noted it was part of a program supporting continental air and missile defense forces without mention of its role in tracking Soviet missile submarines. In 1954 the Fleet Sonar School at Key West established a Sound Search Course for training personnel. The highly classified program

3640-676: The Sound Surveillance System with the acronym SOSUS. Both the full name and acronym were classified. There were occasional slips. A contractor for the Office of Naval Research, Fleet Analysis and Support Division published an unclassified report with "SOSUS" in association with the system acronym "SOSS", defined as "Sound Search Station," and a capability to display data from sonobuoys side by side on either aircraft or SOSS displays in contact classification as either friendly or unfriendly targets. The unclassified name Project Caesar

3731-749: The Soviet submarine threat consisting primarily of a large fleet of diesel submarines. That group also recommended a system to monitor low-frequency sound in the SOFAR channel using multiple listening sites equipped with hydrophones and a processing facility that could calculate submarine positions over hundreds of miles. As a result of the Hartwell group's recommendations, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) contracted with American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), with its Bell Laboratories research and Western Electric manufacturing elements, to develop

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3822-434: The U. S. Naval Facilities." The cover extended to the names of the commands and training of personnel with overall commands designated Ocean Systems Atlantic and Ocean Systems Pacific, and terms such as Ocean Technician [OT] and Oceanographic Research Watch Officer given to Naval Facility personnel. Despite being qualified for a warfare specialty and its symbols, the Navy personnel in the small SOSUS community could not do so for

3913-429: The U.K. has data remoted directly to NOPF Dam Neck and is decommissioned. British and US Forces then begin joint, combined operations at NOPF Dam Neck. Project Caesar, from initial bathymetric and acoustical surveys through cable installation and turnover to operations, was managed by Bureau of Ships (BuShips) from 1951 until 1964. All the direct support through contracts with Western Electric, Bell Labs and ship schedules

4004-880: The US Navy approached the Committee for Undersea Warfare, an academic advisory group formed in 1946 under the National Academy of Sciences , to research antisubmarine warfare. As a result, the Navy formed a study group designated Project Hartwell , named for the University of Pennsylvania's G.P. Hartwell who was the Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Undersea Warfare, under Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) leadership. The Hartwell panel recommended spending of US$ 10,000,000 (equivalent to $ 128,060,000 in 2023) annually to develop systems to counter

4095-516: The acoustic environment drove much of the oceanographic research by both the Navy and institutions with Navy funding for oceanography. A major, long-term research program spanning over 25 years, the Long Range Acoustic Propagation Program (LRAPP), made significant progress in such understanding and influenced decisions in SOSUS, significantly the SOSUS expansion into the eastern Atlantic. The hardware technology

4186-457: The cable ships Aeolus and Thor . Other ships were added for acoustic and bathymetric surveys and cable support. SOSUS systems consisted of bottom-mounted hydrophone arrays connected by underwater cables to facilities ashore. The individual arrays were installed primarily on continental slopes and seamounts at the axis of the deep sound channel and normal to the direction in which they were to cover. The combination of location within

4277-553: The channel may travel thousands of miles before dissipating. An example was reception of coded signals generated by the US Navy-chartered ocean surveillance vessel Cory Chouest off Heard Island , located in the southern Indian Ocean (between Africa, Australia and Antarctica), by hydrophones in portions of all five major ocean basins and as distant as the North Atlantic and North Pacific . This phenomenon

4368-427: The commercial telephone cable technology for the application requiring a shore facility within about 150 nmi (170 mi; 280 km) from the array and thus within that distance from the continental shelf locations suitable for the array. The cable of the time consisted of multi-pair wire connected to the forty hydrophones of the array. New coaxial multiplexed commercial telephone system cable, designated SB, using

4459-653: The consolidation of the Aleutian station at Adak in 1993, the North Atlantic's Argentia in 1995, and those termed "Special Projects" in 1997 and 1998. The western Atlantic system consolidation was centered on the establishment of the Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF) at Dam Neck, Virginia beginning with closure of NAVFACs Eleuthera and Grand Turk. During 1981 Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF), Ford Island became operational and

4550-434: The decommissioning of NAVFAC Midway with that system's data routed to NAVFAC Barbers Point was completed. NAVFAC Lewes, Delaware closed that year. NAVFAC Cape Hatteras closed in 1982 and in 1983 Midway acoustic data was rerouted directly to Naval Ocean Processing Facility, Ford Island. In 1984 the first SURTASS vessel, USNS  Stalwart  (T-AGOS-1) arrives at Little Creek, Virginia . USNS  Zeus  (T-ARC-7) ,

4641-446: The dominant factor. The axis of the SOFAR channel lies at the point of minimum sound speed at a depth where pressure begins dominating temperature and sound speed increases. This point is at the bottom of the thermocline and the top of the deep isothermal layer and thus has some seasonal variance. Other acoustic ducts exist, particularly in the upper mixed layer , but the ray paths lose energy with either surface or bottom reflections. In

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4732-597: The eastern Atlantic. NAVFAC Brawdy became the first "super NAVFAC" with some four hundred U.S. and U.K. military and civilian personnel assigned. The facility ( 51°52′15.3″N 005°08′13.8″W  /  51.870917°N 5.137167°W  / 51.870917; -5.137167 ) was adjacent to the Royal Air Force Station Brawdy which had returned to RAF control during February 1974 after closure in 1971. In 1975 Mizar left Naval Research Laboratory service and joined Project Caesar. In April 1974

4823-400: The facility had access to the operational part of the installations. The early arrangement can be seen in the vertical photograph of Naval Facility Nantucket and later in the photograph of Naval Facility Brawdy below. Equipment in the terminal buildings was installed by specially cleared Western Electric Company personnel. Western Electric and ONR representatives met on 29 October 1950 to draft

4914-552: The form's fields and codes. As a result, people in the fleet often did not know of the system's dedicated antisubmarine mission. Even when they knew they often did not know of its actual performance or exact role. This later had implications as the Cold War ended and budgets became an issue. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the system was opened to tactical use and the fleet began to see the contact information in other formats readily understandable by fleet antisubmarine forces. In 1997

5005-439: The last of the first phase of Atlantic systems. The same year, the Pacific systems began to be installed and activated. Over the next three decades, more systems were added; NAVFAC Keflavik , Iceland in 1966 and NAVFAC Guam in 1968 being examples of expansion beyond the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific. Shore upgrades and new cable technology allowed system consolidation until by 1980 that process had resulted in many closures of

5096-550: The localization of submarines with the AN/SSQ-28 passive omnidirectional Jezebel-LOFAR sonobuoy introduced in 1956 for use by the air antisubmarine forces. That sonobuoy gave the aircraft cued by SOSUS access to the same low frequency and LOFAR capability as SOSUS. Bell Telephone Laboratories time delay correlation was used to fix target position with two or more sonobuoys in a technique named COrrelation Detection And Ranging (CODAR). This, and later specialized, sonobuoys equipped with

5187-406: The mission is declassified in 1991 and the commands reflect that with replacement of the "oceanographic systems" with the accurate "under sea surveillance," the commands renamed as Commander, Undersea Surveillance Atlantic and Commander, Undersea Surveillance Pacific. In 1994 the Atlantic and Pacific commands were merged into Commander Undersea Surveillance at Dam Neck, Virginia . In 1998 that command

5278-644: The ocean . From 2–19 January 1952 the British cable layer Alert installed the first full sized, 1,000 ft (304.8 m) long, forty transducer element operational array in 240 fathoms (1,440.0 ft; 438.9 m) off Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Successful tests with a target submarine resulted in the order to install a total of nine arrays along the coast of the Western North Atlantic. The 1960 secret, limited distribution Navy film Watch in

5369-577: The ocean and the sensitivity of arrays allowed the system to detect acoustic power of less than a single watt at ranges of several hundred kilometres. SOSUS shore terminal processing stations were designated with the vague, generic name of Naval Facility (NAVFAC). By the 1980s improved communications technology allowed the array data once processed in individual Naval Facilities to be sent to central processing centers (Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF)) for centralized processing of multiple fixed and mobile array information. The first systems were limited by

5460-433: The one new cable ship of the requested two, enters the "Caesar fleet" for operations. Atlantic NAVFAC Antigua and Pacific NAVFACs at San Nicolas Island and Point Sur in California closed. Point Sur acoustic data was routed to NAVFAC Centerville. Consolidation and new systems brought further change in 1985. NAVFAC Barbers Point closes with acoustic data directed to NOPF, Ford Island. The Fixed Distributed System (FDS) test array,

5551-487: The path meets the Antarctic Convergence at 52º south there is no deep sound channel but a 30 m (98 ft) in depth surface duct and a shallow sound channel at 200 m (656 ft). As the path turns northward, a station at 43º south, 16º east showed the profile reverting to the SOFAR type at 800 m (2,625 ft). The first practical application began development during World War II when

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5642-567: The position at that point. That technique was given the name of SOFAR backwards: RAFOS. RAFOS is defined in the 1962 edition of The American Practical Navigator among the hyperbolic navigation systems. The early applications relied on fixed shore stations, often termed SOFAR stations. Several became acoustic research facilities as did the Bermuda SOFAR Station which was involved in the Perth to Bermuda experiment. The records of

5733-518: The problem. The forty hydrophones spaced on the array provided the aperture for signal processing to form horizontal azimuthal beams of two to five degrees wide, each beam with a LOFAR analyzer and capability to do narrow-band frequency analysis to discriminate signal from ocean noise and to identify specific frequencies associated with rotating machinery. The NAVFAC watch floor had banks of displays using electrostatic paper, similar to that used for echograms in depth finders. The product of these displays

5824-568: The project underwent testing of the first orbiter, Enterprise , at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in southern California. He was appointed an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1989. Frosch left NASA with the change of administrations in January 1981 to become vice president for research at the General Motors Research Laboratories. In 1985, he was the recipient of

5915-409: The sake of secrecy until the mission became public in 1991. The Ocean System commands, COMOCEANSYSLANT (COSL) and COMOCEANSYSPAC (COSP), then began to reflect their true nature as Undersea Surveillance commands COMUNDERSEASURVLANT (CUSL) and COMUNDERSEASURVPAC (CUSP) under the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) name that had come into effect in 1985 as systems other than fixed emerged. SOSUS

6006-431: The ship was reported as already being funded by Naval Electronics Systems Command (NAVELEX), where the project program management resided, and no longer funded as an oceanographic ship. By 1979 it was the most recently built ship of the five project ships that then included cable repair ships Albert J. Myer and Neptune due for modernization and the larger repair ship Aeolus that was uneconomical to repair and marginal as

6097-490: The sound channel enabled beamforming processing at the shore facilities to form azimuthal beams. When two or more arrays held a contact, triangulation provided approximate positions for air or surface assets to localize. SOSUS grew out of tasking in 1949 to scientists and engineers to study the problem of antisubmarine warfare . It was implemented as a chain of underwater hydrophone arrays linked by cable, based on commercial telephone technology, to shore stations located around

6188-429: The surface and disappearing at high latitudes (above about 60°N or below 60°S) but with sound then traveling in a surface duct. A 1980 report by Naval Ocean Systems Center gives examples in a study of a great circle acoustic path between Perth, Australia and Bermuda with data at eight locations along the path. At both Perth and Bermuda the sound channel axis occurs at a depth of around 1,200 m (3,937 ft). Where

6279-506: The systems were accepted and turned over for operation, came under Commander, Oceanographic System Atlantic (COMOCEANSYSLANT) in 1954. Commander, Oceanographic System Pacific (COMOCEANSYSPAC) was established for the Pacific systems in 1964. Within the Office of Chief of Naval Operations the Director ASW Programs OP-95 was established in 1964. In 1970 COMOCEANSYSLANT and COMOCEANSYSPAC were designated as major commands by

6370-466: The target. The first Atlantic stations, ranging from Nova Scotia to Barbados, formed a long line semicircle looking into the Western Atlantic basin with geographic separation for contact correlation and triangulation. The combination of research and engineering under Jezebel and Michael into an actual broad area surveillance system as seen by Project Hartwell's Frederick V. Hunt became

6461-489: The two Midway arrays could eventually be remoted directly to NOPF Ford Island. This first generation WADR was used to consolidate array data from the California facilities at San Nicolas Island and Point Sur in 1984. Those were followed by remoting Hawaii's Barber's Point in 1985, the Pacific Northwest arrays at Pacific Beach and Coos Head in 1987, and Bermuda in the Atlantic in 1992. A second generation WADR allowed

6552-604: The use of SOSUS after limited civilian access was granted to the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 1991 revealed ten times the number of offshore earthquakes with better localization than with land-based sensors. The SOSUS detection could sense earthquakes at about magnitude two rather than magnitude four. The system detected seafloor spreading and magma events in

6643-701: The use of the SOFAR channel in submarine detection. Robert A. Frosch Robert Alan Frosch (May 22, 1928 – December 30, 2020) was an American scientist who was the fifth administrator of NASA . He was the administrator from 1977 to 1981 during the Carter administration . Born in New York City, Frosch was educated in the public school system in The Bronx . He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in theoretical physics at Columbia University . Between September 1951 and August 1963, Frosch worked as

6734-421: The western Atlantic Ocean from Nova Scotia to Barbados . The first experimental array was a six-element test array laid at Eleuthera in the Bahamas in 1951, followed, after successful experiments with a target submarine, in 1952 by a fully-functional 1,000 ft (304.8 m), forty-hydrophone array. At that time the order for stations was increased from six to nine. The then-secret 1960 Navy film Watch in

6825-589: The wreckage of the American nuclear attack submarine USS  Scorpion , lost near the Azores in May. Deep sound channel The SOFAR channel (short for sound fixing and ranging channel ), or deep sound channel ( DSC ), is a horizontal layer of water in the ocean at which depth the speed of sound is at its minimum. The SOFAR channel acts as a waveguide for sound, and low frequency sound waves within

6916-533: Was a shallow water, curved array with ten eight-element arrays installed on two cables with each cable having the capacity for the usual forty elements. In 1962 a new system was installed terminating at Naval Facility Adak in the Aleutians . The system terminating at Cape May was rerouted to a new Naval Facility Lewes , Delaware, with upgraded processing, after the NAVFAC Cape May had been destroyed in

7007-943: Was behind the "Green Door" which became a name for the program itself as well as being seen as a term for the secrecy. In 1954 three full systems to include a NAVFAC terminus were installed with arrays terminating at NAVFACs at Ramey Air Force Base, Puerto Rico in September, Grand Turk in October, and San Salvador in December. Systems terminating at Naval Facility Bermuda , Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Shelburne, Nova Scotia , Nantucket , and Cape May were installed during 1955. Systems terminating at Naval Facility Cape Hatteras and Naval Facility Antigua and two Evaluation Centers, forerunners of NOPFs, were established in New York and Norfolk during 1956. The initial array at Eleuthera got

7098-523: Was closely held on a strict need-to-know basis that was close to Sensitive Compartmented Information even though it was classified at the Secret level. Even the Fleet had little knowledge of the system or its function. Contact data reaching the fleet was in a strictly formatted message designated RAINFORM, hiding the source, that the fleet often did not understand without reference to publications to understand

7189-486: Was deactivated. In 1965 Flyer was acquired as a bathymetric survey ship. The satellite communications ship Kingsport joined the project in 1967 for acoustic and bathymetric work. The first NAVFAC decommissioning took place with the isolated duty station at NAVFAC San Salvador, Bahamas shut down on 31 January 1970. The old station is now home of the Gerace Research Center . NAVFAC Barbers Point

7280-431: Was given the name Project Jezebel . The origin of the project name was explained by Robert Frosch to Senator Stennis during a 1968 hearing. It was because of the low frequencies, "about the A below middle C on the piano" (about 100–150 cycles) and "Jezebel" being chosen because "she was of low character." This refers to A2 on the musical scale, which is technically two A's below middle C. Jezebel and LOFAR branched into

7371-471: Was given to cover development and installation of the resulting system. A cover story was developed to explain the visible shore installations, the Naval Facilities, and the commands under which they fell. The cover explained that data gathered by oceanographic and acoustic surveys with ships could at times be collected "more expeditiously and more economically by means of shore stations. These are

7462-540: Was introduced with fiber optic cable. Cable technology and signal processing improved and upgrades were made to the original installations. Cable technology made it possible to site arrays further from shore into the ocean basins. New signal processing capabilities allowed for innovations such as the split array in which a single line array was divided into segments, each separately processed, then electronically recombined to form narrower beams for better bearing and cross fixes between arrays. Augmenting these local improvements

7553-447: Was largely that of the commercial telephone system and oil exploration. Cable laying was a capability AT&T and other entities had developed for decades for commercial communications cables . The understanding of the ocean acoustic environment made the system possible rather than development of new technology. SOSUS was a case of new understanding of the environment and then application of largely existing technology and even equipment to

7644-420: Was on installation of MILS in the Atlantic and Pacific test ranges. Arrays of hydrophones placed around the target area located the missile warhead by means of measuring arrival times of the explosion at the various hydrophones of a SOFAR charge in the test warhead. During that period an atypical SOSUS system was installed in 1959 at Argentia, Newfoundland to provide surveillance for approaches to Hudson Bay . It

7735-445: Was placed under Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. The LOFARgram representation of acoustics in black, gray and white with an operator trained and adapted to interpreting that display was the critical link in the system. Experienced operators that could detect subtle differences and with practice could detect faint signatures of targets were vital to detection. It was even found that color blindness could be an advantage. It

7826-467: Was soon apparent that the Navy's practice of short term tours and transfer out of the system was a problem. Commander Ocean Systems Atlantic launched an effort in 1964 to create a rating peculiar to SOSUS and allow personnel to remain within the community. It took five years for Bureau of Personnel to create the rating of Ocean Technician [OT]. That bureau did not do the same for officers thus forcing those with experience to either leave for new duties or leave

7917-555: Was still being denied. That opened a new field for women outside the usual medical, education, or administrative specialties. SOSUS assignment qualified as important as sea duty on a Cold War front line. In 1961 the system proved its effectiveness when it tracked USS  George Washington on her first North Atlantic transit to the United Kingdom. The first detection of a Soviet nuclear submarine occurred on 6 July 1962 when NAVFAC Barbados recognized and reported contact #27103,

8008-511: Was the LOFARgram which graphically represented acoustic energy and frequency against time. Those were examined by the personnel trained to identify submarine signatures. When two or more arrays held a target the bearings from each array gave an estimated target position by triangulation. The system could provide cuing information on the presence of the submarines and an approximate location for air or surface antisubmarine warfare assets to localize

8099-575: Was the increased central processing in centers that eventually became the Naval Oceanographic Processing Facilities. There the contacts of multiple arrays were correlated with other intelligence sources in order to cue and provide the search area for air and surface antisubmarine assets to localize and prosecute. The system was considered a strategic, not tactical, system at the time and part of continental defense. In military construction hearings during 1964 before

8190-663: Was to terminate in Canada but a change in government there precluded a facility in Canada at the time. The sixth array, requiring redesign of the cable and repeater system, was thus terminated at Naval Facility Pacific Beach, making it a dual array facility. From 1958 to 1960 Project Caesar assets began work installing the Missile Impact Location System (MILS), based on technology and installation methods similar to those for SOSUS, in support of Air Force ICBM tests. The survey and installation focus in that period

8281-444: Was under this management. In 1964 the project was placed under Industrial Manager, Potomac River Command and then Naval District Washington in 1965. In 1966 the project came under Naval Electronics Systems Command (NAVELEX PME-124) where it remained through the name change in 1986 to Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWARSYSCOM PMW 180) and a move from Arlington to San Diego in 1997. The Navy operational side, taking over when

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