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Gathered in a temporary maritime operations center in Arlington, Virginia, military, industry and political leaders watched multiple satellite images flash onto large monitor screens. These images showed three types of drug-running vessels hundreds of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean — a small, fast, highly maneuverable boat capable of transferring illicit cargo between ships on the high seas; a support ship with a crane for loading and unloading contraband; and a tugboat serving as the recipient ship for smuggling cargo into the U.S. The scenario was part of a larger July 2023 experimentation event designed to emulate drug-smuggling activities in the maritime domain as well as efforts to deter the flow of such contraband. Called the SCOUT Main Experimentation Event, the two-week exercise involved partners such as the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Joint Inter-Agency Task Force-South (JIATF-S), U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), and numerous naval warfare centers and industry and academic partners. Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus, who was one of several ONR leaders at the maritime operations center, said, “I’m truly impressed by the innovation, teaming and analytic rigor you’ve all brought to this exercise. Your pioneering approach is leading the way for us to learn faster with new partners to tackle the hardest operational challenges.”

Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh, best known for his daring dive to the deepest spot on Earth, nearly 36,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, has died at age 92. Walsh was a co-pilot of the Trieste bathyscaphe, a deep submergence vehicle acquired by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in 1958. Two years later, on January 23, 1960, Walsh and Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard, son of the inventor of the bathyscaphe, became the first humans to descend into the Challenger Deep, located in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench. “ONR sponsored the Trieste, but it was then-Lt. Don Walsh who made the very daring decision to make the first descent into the deepest spot of the earth’s ocean. Walsh was a Navy officer, a submariner, an adventurer, and an oceanographer. To his family, we extend our deepest condolences and gratitude for allowing him to explore, and share his extraordinary experiences and knowledge with us,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has ended fiscal year 2023 with the highest rating from the Professional Services Council (PSC) for its outreach, transparency and thoroughness in acquisition forecasts. The Department of the Navy’s ranking on the PSC scorecard is a big change from previous years according to Ellen Simonoff, director, Office of Small Business Programs. She said last year the DoN pushed an initiative to get a higher ranking and succeeded, in part, by getting all of the Navy commands to have their long-range acquisition estimates correspond to each other in terms of how and what information was published.

Known as the Layered Laser Defense (LLD), the weapon was designed and built by Lockheed Martin to serve as a multi-domain, multi-platform demonstration system. It can counter unmanned aerial systems and fast-attack boats with a high-power laser—and also use its high-resolution telescope to track in-bound air threats, support combat identification and conduct battle damage assessment of engaged targets.

The Office of Naval Research's Advanced Ground and Amphibious Platforms program researches, develops and exploits science and technologies at the intersection of the mechanical, control and electronic system domains to enhance the maneuverability and mobility of ground and amphibious manned and unmanned platforms.

The Office of Naval Research's Propulsor Hydrodynamics and Hydroacoustics program explores science and technology related to the physics of fluid flow around propulsors to improve the Navy’s propulsor design capability for improved stealth, efficiency and mobility.

The Office of Naval Research's Ship Signatures program supports the Navy’s interest in advanced sea platform survivability science and technology, and submarine science and technology.

The Office of Naval Research's Subsurface Platform Science & Technology program is focused on preserving and advancing the advantage of U.S. Navy platforms over adversaries.

The goal of the surface ship hydrodynamics and dynamics research area is to develop increased understanding and predictive simulation capabilities of nonlinear interaction of surface ship and ocean environment, free surface turbulence, surface ship dynamics, and hydrodynamic loads in relevant operation environment.

The Office of Naval Research's Unmanned Surface Vehicle and Small Combatant Craft program supports the Navy’s interest in advanced sea platform performance, advanced sea platform and autonomy technologies.