Undersea Text Messaging for Nuclear Subs

The Navy has long sought a solution to a major technical dilemma: How to stay in touch with submarines while they run deep beneath the surface.

Stew Magnuson of National Defense has a great piece on one possible solution: "Deep Siren," a new system that would allow a submarine to send a text without surfacing. Intriguingly, the system works by sending a communications buoy through the sub's trash chute. Magnuson writes:

When the submarine is far enough away, the buoy ascends to the surface, deploys floatation devices and sends a message to a command and control center through an Iridium satellite.

Once a link between the buoy and the command center is established, it then lowers an antenna deep into the water. A transducer takes messages, translates them into acoustic energy and sends a pulse out through the water in an area greater than 50 nautical square miles.

Earlier this year, Raytheon and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center conducted a series of tests to see if a ship could deploy the buoy. In June, a sub in a deepwater range in the Bahamas was able to establish a link with a command post ashore.

This is pretty far-out stuff. After all, the Navy once wanted to test the possibility of using the High Frequency Auroral Research Program, the ionospheric research facility in Alaska, to see if it could transmit messages to nuclear-armed subs. If Deep Siren works, one has to wonder: What will the text message that ends the world look like? "Nukes r cmg @ U. LOLZ!!"

[PHOTO: U.S. Navy]

ALSO:

2. Ionosphere-Boiler Not a Superweapon, After All?
3. New Document Reveals Military Mystery's Powers
4. DARPA Hearts HAARP; Tinfoil Hats Melt
5. HAARP Facility Complete; Break out the Tinfoil hats
6. Russian Journal: HAARP Could Capsize Planet