Acceptance tests for 80 floats - May 2016

As part of the MOCCA (Monitoring the Oceans and Climate Change with Argo) project activities, preparing and testing the floats before their shipment to deployment ships is a core action of the Euro-Argo Central Infrastructure.

In May 2016 two weeks of intensive acceptance tests have been performed in the Ifremer tank by the Euro-Argo technical team. More than 60 floats were scheduled to operate for 6 cycles with the following parameters:

  • 4 cycles of 6 hours
  • 2 cycles of 12 hours
  • drift depth 15 m
  • profile depth 18 m

T/S measures during drift and ascent profiles

Launch of MOCCA Arvor-Iridium floats in Ifremer pool. At the front Argos floats been tested by Coriolis the same week.

Floats performing ascent to surface on last cycle.

During these tests all the float components are being tested:

  • mission parameters
  • hydraulic pump and solenoid valve actions
  • T&S sensors with inter-comparison between floats measurements
  • Iridium data transmissions (2-way)