Project ARTEMIS
Encyclopedia
Project ARTEMIS was a project undertaken by the United States Navy
in the 1960s, which produced a Low Frequency Active Sonar
system that could detect submarine
s at long range. Robert A. Frosch
, in his capacity as Technical Director of Hudson Laboratories (Columbia University), was Technical Director of the project. Dr. Frosch later went on to be the 5th administrator of NASA. The project was named in honor of Frederick Vinton Hunt
. Since Artemis
is the goddess of the hunt, the name of the project is in deference to F. V. Hunt who proposed the idea in 1951.
A 500-shaft horsepower, controllable-pitch screw propeller was installed in a transverse tunnel through the forefoot of the USNS Mission Capistrano. The propeller, commonly referred to as a bow thruster, delivered 11,250 pounds of thrust during dock trials. Its use was for the single purpose of controlling the vessel's heading when lying to in the open ocean. Under these conditions, it is reported capable of swinging the ship to any given bearing and maintaining it to within one degree of yaw in sea conditions of 15 knot winds and five foot waves upon six foot swells.
Part of the Artemis system was Argus Island, located at31.9498°N 65.1775°W, an oceanographic research tower, which had been erected in 1961 by the United States Navy on Argus Bank 35 miles (56.3 km) SW of Bermuda in 192 feet (58.5 m) of water. After eight years of use, the tower was condemned as unsafe in 1970 and was demolished in 1976, removing a major navigation aid for sport fisherman.
.
. They were capable of delivering its payload at around 8,800 km, with an accuracy (CEP) of around 5 km. A single nuclear warhead was carried with a nominal yield of 3 megatons of TNT. However, they were very new and turned out to be very unreliable.
K-19
, the first nuclear powered Russian boat, was commissioned on 30 April 1961. The military at that time considered the single greatest security threat to the USA the possibility of a submarine-delivered nuclear warhead placed near a major American city. Artemis was considered part of an underwater Defense Early Warning system. However, it was discovered that the Soviet boats were particularly noisy. Rapid advances in computer technology and the development of signal processing algorithms such as the Fast Fourier transform
quickly gave the United States the superior military position using multiple passive SOSUS arrays. In 1961, SOSUS tracked USS George Washington
from the United States to the United Kingdom
. The next year SOSUS detected and tracked the first Soviet diesel submarine.
The ARTEMIS active systems were eventually retired since the passive systems proved adequate to detecting submarines that threatened the American coast. Largely because of the spy ring operated by John Anthony Walker
in 1968, and the development of the submarine launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, the need to send ballistic submarines directly to the American Coast diminished. The Soviet Union began to rely more on a Bastion
whereby the latest generation of SSBN was deployed only in well protected nearby waters. A mobile surveillance capability, called SURTASS was developed in the mid 1970s. This system passed OPEVAL
in 1980 and the ships began to be deployed. By 1985 soviet naval exercises in the North Sea were using as many as a 100 vessels including attack submarines. Chief of Naval Operations enacted the Urgent Anti-Submarine Research Program(CUARP) whose centerpiece was to activate the SURTASS fleet with a low-frequency system, and to develop tactics for such a system. The mobile system was considerably smaller than the Artemis transducer array, weighing roughly 6 times less.
With the diminshed threat of the Atlantic SSBN, the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System
was redeployed in the Pacific where a new generations of Attack submarines and Ballistic missile submarine
s were being deployed by several countries. The low frequency active system is currently being deployed on the USNS Impeccable
.
Defense Technical Information Center Reports
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
in the 1960s, which produced a Low Frequency Active Sonar
Sonar
Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigate, communicate with or detect other vessels...
system that could detect submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
s at long range. Robert A. Frosch
Robert A. Frosch
Robert Alan Frosch , American scientist, was the fifth Administrator of NASA from 1977–1981 during the Carter administration.-Biography:Born in New York City, Frosch was educated in the public school system in The Bronx...
, in his capacity as Technical Director of Hudson Laboratories (Columbia University), was Technical Director of the project. Dr. Frosch later went on to be the 5th administrator of NASA. The project was named in honor of Frederick Vinton Hunt
Frederick Vinton Hunt
Frederick Vinton Hunt was an inventor, a scientist and a professor at Harvard University who worked in the field of acoustic engineering.He made significant contributions to room acoustics, regulated...
. Since Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
is the goddess of the hunt, the name of the project is in deference to F. V. Hunt who proposed the idea in 1951.
Ship modifications
The active array was deployed from a ship, but only as a platform of convenience since a permanent installation in deep water was extremely costly. The ship's purpose was station-keeping and the ability to orient itself. A World War II tanker, USNS Mission Capistrano was modified to carry the ultra‑high‑powered sonar transducer array. Upon completion of her conversion, she joined Project “Artemis”.A 500-shaft horsepower, controllable-pitch screw propeller was installed in a transverse tunnel through the forefoot of the USNS Mission Capistrano. The propeller, commonly referred to as a bow thruster, delivered 11,250 pounds of thrust during dock trials. Its use was for the single purpose of controlling the vessel's heading when lying to in the open ocean. Under these conditions, it is reported capable of swinging the ship to any given bearing and maintaining it to within one degree of yaw in sea conditions of 15 knot winds and five foot waves upon six foot swells.
Active array specifications
The active portion of the Artemis array was 50 ft (15.2 m) by 33 ft (10.1 m) and weighed 400 tons. It consisted of 1440 individual transducers (200 pounds apiece) in a 48 by 30 configuration. The array was developed by Massa Products in Quincy, Massachussetts. The frequency range was 350 to 450 Hz, with a source level of 247 dB and an acoustic power of 1 megawatt. The transducer could be raised and lowered like a centerboard through the ship’s bottom. The transducers could be deployed to a depth of 1200 feet (365.8 m). The system was not meant to be mobile, and was only used when the ship was in station-keeping mode.Receive system and monitoring
The passive receive array consisted of ten strings of hydrophones mounted on 200 eighty-foot towers laid down the side of Plantagenet BankPlantagenet Bank is often referred to as Argus Bank. in Bermuda. The strings were laid on the side of the bank using the US Navy large covered lighter YFNB-12, reconfigured with a long overhead boom to handle the towers. Each cable had special takeouts built into it at intervals from which wires to the hydrophones were connected. Each tower was clamped onto the special cable with takeouts. At the upper end of the approximately 4 inches (101.6 mm) cable a wire rope was attached and led to an explosively embedded anchor shot into the flat coral top of Plantagenet Bank. Tension of more than 40,000 lbs was applied to the wire rope and cable to lay it down the side of the bank in the straightest line possible. At one point all further construction ceased while a stopper was placed on the special cable because most of the connection to the wire rope had broken and the string was being held by a few strands of wire on the double drum winch on YFNB-12. The YFNB-12 was held in place with 4 Murray and Tregurtha diesel outboards placed on the corners and capable of 360 degree rotation, developing massive thrust in any direction. The cables led to Argus Island tower, from which the signal was conducted to the Tudor Hill, Southampton Bermuda, United States listening post located at 32.264122°N 64.877666°W that had opened on June 1, 1955. At the time the post was classified top secret.Tudor Hill Naval Facility Bermuda was closed in 1995. The facility shares a short road with the Pompano Beach Club.Part of the Artemis system was Argus Island, located at31.9498°N 65.1775°W, an oceanographic research tower, which had been erected in 1961 by the United States Navy on Argus Bank 35 miles (56.3 km) SW of Bermuda in 192 feet (58.5 m) of water. After eight years of use, the tower was condemned as unsafe in 1970 and was demolished in 1976, removing a major navigation aid for sport fisherman.
Feasibility of permanent installation
A feasibility study for developing the amplifier transducer and energy storage system to be associated with a nuclear powered, remote, unattended high power acoustic source was investigated. The results of this study indicated that such a system was feasible. No system of this type was ever procured. The use of fixed low frequency systems was abandoned in the mid 1960's, and replaced with mobile systems like the one on USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS-23)USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS-23)
USNS Impeccable is an Impeccable-class ocean surveillance ship acquired by the U.S. Navy in 2001 and assigned to Military Sealift Command’s Special Missions Program.-Construction:...
.
Political context
In 1959 the Soviet Union was deploying its first generation Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, R-7 SemyorkaR-7 Semyorka
The R-7 was a Soviet missile developed during the Cold War, and the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile. The R-7 made 28 launches between 1957 and 1961, but was never deployed operationally. A derivative, the R-7A, was deployed from 1960 to 1968...
. They were capable of delivering its payload at around 8,800 km, with an accuracy (CEP) of around 5 km. A single nuclear warhead was carried with a nominal yield of 3 megatons of TNT. However, they were very new and turned out to be very unreliable.
Soviet submarine K-19
K-19, KS-19, BS_19 was one of the first two Soviet submarines of the 658, 658м, 658с class , the first generation nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear ballistic missiles, specifically the R-13 . Its keel was laid down on 17 October 1958, christened on 8 April 1959 and launched on 11 October 1959...
, the first nuclear powered Russian boat, was commissioned on 30 April 1961. The military at that time considered the single greatest security threat to the USA the possibility of a submarine-delivered nuclear warhead placed near a major American city. Artemis was considered part of an underwater Defense Early Warning system. However, it was discovered that the Soviet boats were particularly noisy. Rapid advances in computer technology and the development of signal processing algorithms such as the Fast Fourier transform
Fast Fourier transform
A fast Fourier transform is an efficient algorithm to compute the discrete Fourier transform and its inverse. "The FFT has been called the most important numerical algorithm of our lifetime ." There are many distinct FFT algorithms involving a wide range of mathematics, from simple...
quickly gave the United States the superior military position using multiple passive SOSUS arrays. In 1961, SOSUS tracked USS George Washington
USS George Washington (SSBN-598)
USS George Washington , the lead ship of her class of nuclear ballistic missile submarines, was the third United States Navy ship of the name, in honor of George Washington , first President of the United States, and the first of that name to be purpose-built as a warship.-Construction and...
from the United States to the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. The next year SOSUS detected and tracked the first Soviet diesel submarine.
The ARTEMIS active systems were eventually retired since the passive systems proved adequate to detecting submarines that threatened the American coast. Largely because of the spy ring operated by John Anthony Walker
John Anthony Walker
John Anthony Walker, Jr. is a former United States Navy Chief Warrant Officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985, at the height of the Cold War...
in 1968, and the development of the submarine launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, the need to send ballistic submarines directly to the American Coast diminished. The Soviet Union began to rely more on a Bastion
Bastion (naval)
A bastion in naval strategy is a heavily-defended area of water in which friendly naval forces can operate safely. Typically, that area will be partially enclosed by friendly shoreline, defended by naval mines, monitored by sensors, and heavily patrolled by surface, submarine, and air forces.-...
whereby the latest generation of SSBN was deployed only in well protected nearby waters. A mobile surveillance capability, called SURTASS was developed in the mid 1970s. This system passed OPEVAL
OPEVAL
An Operational Evaluation , the final phase of operational test and evaluation prior to fielding of a system or new equipment, is a process used by NATO military forces and designed to be no more than a 'customer acceptance' test...
in 1980 and the ships began to be deployed. By 1985 soviet naval exercises in the North Sea were using as many as a 100 vessels including attack submarines. Chief of Naval Operations enacted the Urgent Anti-Submarine Research Program(CUARP) whose centerpiece was to activate the SURTASS fleet with a low-frequency system, and to develop tactics for such a system. The mobile system was considerably smaller than the Artemis transducer array, weighing roughly 6 times less.
With the diminshed threat of the Atlantic SSBN, the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System
Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System
The AN/UQQ-2 Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System is a towed array sonar system of the United States Navy.SURTASS began as development program in 1973 using the new research vessel Moana Wave. In 1980 SURTASS passed OPEVAL...
was redeployed in the Pacific where a new generations of Attack submarines and Ballistic missile submarine
Ballistic missile submarine
A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine equipped to launch ballistic missiles .-Description:Ballistic missile submarines are larger than any other type of submarine, in order to accommodate SLBMs such as the Russian R-29 or the American Trident...
s were being deployed by several countries. The low frequency active system is currently being deployed on the USNS Impeccable
USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS-23)
USNS Impeccable is an Impeccable-class ocean surveillance ship acquired by the U.S. Navy in 2001 and assigned to Military Sealift Command’s Special Missions Program.-Construction:...
.
External links
- Time magazine. New A.S.W. Friday, June 30, 1961.
- Massa products corporation Sea Technology article 1985
- Chart showing Plantaganet Bank offshore Bermuda where the Argus Island Tower was located (#16 on chart)
- The Argus Bank rises to a depth of 50m, and is frequented by both sport and commercial. An interesting feature of the bank is an observation tower used by the US Navy during the cold war to watch for enemy submarines
- Wikimapia showing the Tudor Hill NAVFAC
- Pompano Beach Club shares the 1/2 mile road with former NAVFAC Tudor Hill
Defense Technical Information Center Reports
- Argus Island Tower 1960 to 1976 (used in project)
- Feasibility of a Remote Unattended High Power Acoustic Source
- Project ARTEMIS. Analysis of Transducer-Impedance Variations on the Amplifier Operation. Project ARTEMIS High-Power Acoustic Source.
- PROJECT ARTEMIS ACOUSTIC SOURCE PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS.
- Project ARTEMIS High Power Acoustic Source.
- Project Artemis Acoustic Source. Description and Characteristics of the Facility as Installed on the USNS Mission Capistrano (T-AG162).
- Project ARTEMIS Acoustic Source. Characteristics of the Type TR 11F Transducer Element.
- TEST OF PROJECT ARTEMIS ACOUSTIC SOURCE
- PROJECT ARTEMIS ACOUSTIC SOURCE - ACOUSTIC TEST PROCEDURE
- Project ARTEMIS High Power Acoustic Source. Effect of Transducer Element Electrical Connection on Interaction in a Consolidated Array
- Project ARTEMIS. The Installation of a Bow Thruster in the USNS Mission Capistrano (T-AG 162).
- Project ARTEMIS. High Power Acoustic Source. Interim Report on Acoustic Performance
- Project ARTEMIS. High Power Acoustic Source. Interim Report on Acoustic Performance (Second)
- Project Artemis. High Power Acoustic Source.
- PROJECT ARTEMIS ACOUSTIC SOURCE SUMMARY REPORT
- High-Data-Rate System for the ARTEMIS Long-Range Ocean Surveillance Project.
- ARTEMIS. SUMMARY OF ARTEMIS SYSTEM COMMITTEE TECHNICAL SESSION NO. 4, 14-15 SEPTEMBER 1961 (U)
- A STUDY OF ACOUSTIC TRAVEL TIME VARIATION ACROSS THE APERTURE OF THE ARTEMIS ARRAY.
- Artemis: Integrating Scientific Data on the Grid (Preprint)
- Calibration of the ARTEMIS Source and Receiving Array on the Mission Capistrano