Programme details

A team of engineers and technicians are installing an impressive module called Geostar, standing for Geophysical and Oceanographic Station for Abyssal Research. This is a prototype of an unmanned station destined to act as an observation post at great ocean depths.

Geostar Instruments

Constructed from aluminium, it contains numerous instruments, some of which are specifically for geophysical measuring. Geostar is also home to numerous instruments specifically designed for use in oceanographic observation, to better understand the condition and movement of the waters under our oceans.

Mobile Docker MODUS

The station has been designed to descend to a depth of 4,000 metres.
To deploy and retrieve it, researchers in Berlin devised and built MODUS, a mobile docker, perfectly adapted to the mission.
MODUS is lowered using a multifunctional cable that can also transmit electricity and exchanges of data. Once on the bottom, MODUS must be able to move laterally, either to position the station exactly or to approach it and recover it. To do this, the machinery is equipped with small but extremely powerful propellers.

Benefit of The Geostar Project

Below the surface of our oceans lies a gigantic planet virtually unexplored and unexploited. It is only now that we are beginning to understand the enormous potential it has for mankind. The most important benefit of the Geostar project, which is financed by the European Union, is the possibility of long-running measurements. Up until now, our incursions into the ocean's hostile depths were limited to a few days at the most. The Geostar station is autonomous and is able to remain for up to a year at the bottom of the ocean.

Cooperation with Biodeep

Recently, Geostar allied itself with Biodeep, a European project that studies life forms in these strange basins that are found in the Mediterranean where the water has a salinity of more than 30%. The MODUS was a vital tool in descending this bottles module to 3,000 metres and in transmitting images back to the surface. This is the first research project of life at great depths in an environment that has totally unusual parameters: in the basins, the pressure, the temperature and the chemical composition of the water would seem a priori to be incompatible with life. However, micro-organisms and bacteria live and breed in this environment. Studying them, understanding the way they function and decrypting their DNA can lead to major discoveries in areas as diverse as medicine or cosmetics.

Conclusion

In April 2001 Geostars first long mission was completed. It was successfully recovered after remaining for 206 days at a depth of 2,000 metres. GEOSTAR is the future oceanography: observation networks that continuously measure oceanic parameters, for the good of science, industry and the general public.