15 June 2024 – A new marine operation took place in the last week for enlarging the ORCA deep-sea neutrino telescope.
Taking advantage of a spot of good weather of 48 hours, four new detection units were added to the apparatus.
For each of such units, the following steps were required: installation on the bottom of the sea, connection to the apparatus, functionality check, unfurling from the launcher vehicle, final test to check the functionality post-unfurling and recovery of the launcher vehicle. During the operation one acoustic beacon, which was in need of refurbishment, was recovered from the bottom of the sea.
The campaign was performed with two ships and a deep-sea ROV. A team onshore performed all needed tests on the newly installed detection units.
After the new installations, ORCA now comprises 23 detection units; only one more detection unit is needed for completing all connections on the first of the submarine nodes of the apparatus.
Many thanks to all teams involved for this important step forward!
