The U.S. Antarctic Marine Living Resource Program received its first two gliders on December 27, 2017. The names they came with were their serial numbers, which were—let’s face it—not really names at all. Since it’s considered bad luck to launch a nameless boat (and, by extension, deploy a nameless glider), our first order of business was choosing new names.
We had many, uh, lively discussions about what to call them. Should we name them after famous fisheries scientists? After yellow animals? After Star Wars characters?
In the end, we settled on names that were practical, if not a little dull. Our first two gliders were named AMLR01 and AMLR02. Now, more than 7 years later, we’re up to AMLR08. We also have six additional gliders named after animals in the California Current and two gliders named after Lord of the Rings characters.
But AMLR01 is our workhorse. We’ve deployed AMLR01 eight times—four times in the Pacific Ocean off of San Diego, California, and four times in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. It’s been at sea for a total of 267 days, performed 2,888 dives, and traveled 4,965 kilometers—more than 3,000 miles. That’s the equivalent of flying from San Diego to Nova Scotia, Canada. Over those 267 days, AMLR01 collected almost 4 GB of environmental data and more than 30 GB of acoustic data for estimating the biomass of Antarctic krill. These estimates help us do two things. First, they help us to manage the krill fishery around the South Shetland Islands. Second, they help us to understand population trends in the seals and seabirds we study in the context of how much krill is available for them to eat.
On January 2, 2025, AMLR01 completed its fourth Antarctic deployment by flying more than 1,000 kilometers across the Bransfield Strait over 44 days. This deployment was remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, this was the first deployment we’ve ever done without a single mission interruption. Usually, a glider will abort its mission at least once during a lengthy deployment. This can happen due to serious problems that require an emergency recovery (like with AMLR08, which was deployed with AMLR01 in November 2024). It can happen for less serious problems that pilots can deal with in real time to keep the glider flying. Zero interruptions for such a long deployment is rare, and feels like a major accomplishment.
The other reason this deployment was remarkable is that AMLR01 is an older glider. It has an old, slow flight computer and older scientific sensors. Newer gliders have faster processors in their flight and science computers, and more features to improve their performance. Yet, AMLR01 is more reliable than all of our newer gliders. In this sense, it feels like a classic car, when cars were built to last. As Kenny Rogers sang, they don’t make them like they used to.
So, with the most boring deployment we’ve ever had, our 2024–25 glider field season in Antarctica came to a successful end. Perhaps instead of calling AMLR01 our workhorse, we should call it our work-unicorn. If AMLR01 were a professional athlete, I’d suggest retiring its jersey. But we can’t. We still have work to do.
