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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'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 Metamaterials program supports basic research on optical and acoustic metamaterials to control light and sound propagation over a large frequency range.

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.

Student engineering teams from Princeton, Washington College and the University of Alabama have won first place in their respective events at the “Promoting Electric Propulsion” (PEP) boat races, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE). In just six years, this electric boat-building competition has grown from a single university to 34, with more than 200 students who took part in the five-mile races on Broad Bay in Virginia Beach. Dr. Steve Russell, program officer, Sea Warfare and Weapons department, said he launched the PEP competition with a colleague from ASNE, Dr. Leigh McCue, and Tim Cullis, Naval Sea Warfare Center Carderock, after seeing a public race by local hobbyists in the Chesapeake Bay.

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.

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.

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 Ship Structural Reliability program is focused on the development of reliability-based knowledge and tools to improve performance and affordability of naval ship hull structures from cradle to grave.

Naval assets, large and small, spend months to years at sea exposed to considerable biofouling pressures. The Office of Naval Research's Biofouling Control and Coatings Program sponsors research to develop antifouling/fouling release coatings and the mechanics underlying such materials.