DARPA Wants Distributed Network of Deep Sea Storage Units

Zothecula writes "DARPA has seen the future of naval warfare and it's falling upward. As part of an effort to reduce the logistics of sending equipment into trouble areas, the agency's Upward Falling Payloads project is aimed at developing storage capsules capable of remaining on the deep seabed for years. These would contain non-lethal military assets that could be deployed on the spot years in advance and rise to the surface as needed." Possible side benefit: they need to research communications systems reliable enough to command the deep sea capsules when needed.

Re:Why do they explicitly mention non-lethal asset

[Baloroth]

From TFA:

Because of the difficulty of retrieving the capsules, DARPA is concentrating on non-lethal assets, so there’s no conflict with treaties involving munitions and their disposal.

I think DARPA is concerned about the politics of potentially leaving dangerous weapons just lying around. They obviously could be used for anything that can be stored for long period of time, if they manage to get them working.

Re:my first thought was underwater raid

[icebike]

Since this Slashdot the title should really be storage containers as the obvious assumption is a storage unit stores data!

RAID: Reconnaissance Assets Invisibly Drowned?

This is old news, the story was posted on slashdot last week [slashdot.org]. Same story, same request, same misinterpretation of what is actually sought.

The request is for pre-positioned military assets (non lethal) for surveillance and intelligence which remain inert on the sea floor until needed, and then become buoyant, rise to the surface and release aerial surveillance equipment, (short life drones or balloons), or merely float and gather signal intelligence.
These could be used for search and rescue as well as intelligence gathering in trouble spots.

This avoids having to find some way to fly a plane or a manned drone to some remote location in a hurry. Since its not a munition, its not considered an aggressive act to seed the ocean floor (4000 feet down, in international waters) with something that you can later instruct to become active.

It is thought that being down 4000 feet would be enough protection to make them unlikely to be messed with. (Wishful thinking if you ask me, once you abandon anything on the ocean bottom without support of international treaty, its pretty much fair game for salvage or state sponsored retrieval via ROVs.).