The Geodyne Division of EG&G International, Waltham, Mass., has announced that its new Mark I (S) side scan sonar will be installed by the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office on the PX-15 deep-sea submersible before it begins a 30-day undersea cruise in the Gulf Stream next June.
Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation's 48-foot PX-15, recently named the Ben Franklin, will follow the path of the Gulf Stream from West Palm Beach, Fla., to a point off northern New England, drifting with the current at a depth of 300 to 1,000 feet. The Mark I (S) side scan sonar will be used during the Ben Franklin's deep dives to the 1,000-2,000-foot levels. The side scan will produce a permanent, continuous map of the deep ocean floor and will locate and outline sunken objects and terrain at 1,000-foot ranges on both sides of the sub.
The Mark I (S) acoustic transducer will be mounted externally on a boom attached to the bow. The transducer emits high frequency sound pulses in a fan-shaped beam and returns its findings to a graphic recorder located inside the sub. The graphic recorder provides a continuous map of the ocean bottom on strip chart paper, resulting in a broad detailed picture, somewhat resembling a large-scale aerial photograph.
Mark I was similarly mounted on the 51-foot submersible Aluminaut during ten dives off Vieques Island near Puerto Rico in August of this year.
The first submersible to test the Mark I (S), in July 1968, was Lockheed Missile and Space Company's 40-foot Deep Quest. Deep Quest cruised for 3.5 hours at depths up to 520 feet, seven miles off the coast of San Diego.
The Mark I (S) is one of a family of EG&G side scan sonars. Other designs include the Mark I and Mark I (DT), systems which are towed from surface vessels to produce sea floor maps in harbors, as well as continental shelf and slope regions.
For further information, contact EG&G International, Geodyne Division, 151 Bear Hill Road, Waltham, Mass. 02154.