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History-Making Oceanographer and Ret. Navy Captain Dies at 92

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.

November 16, 2023

ONR Achieves Highest Ranking on Industry Association Scorecard

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.

November 20, 2023

Multi-scale Mechanics

The Office of Naval Research's multi-scale mechanics research area endeavors to develop multiscale and multiphysics mechanics theories that bridge the nano scale to the continuum scale to predict material and structural strength.

March 18, 2022

Resilient Structures

The Office of Naval Research's resilient structures research area endeavors to develop structural configurations, materials and technologies to enable self-sustainable, self-repairable and highly damage resistant structures.

March 18, 2022

Applied Physical Mathematics

The Office of Naval Research's Applied Physical Mathematics program focuses on new foundational theory and experimental approaches to areas concerning wave, energy, heat, and momentum dynamics.

March 18, 2022

Cooperative Autonomous Swarm Technology (CAST)

The Office of Naval Research's CAST program seeks to develop technologies to enable cooperative operations of unmanned maritime systems including unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and weapons in a wide range of mission areas.

March 18, 2022