NUMBER 1
 NR-1 with crew on deck in the Gulf of Mexico (2007) |
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Keel laying | June 10, 1967 |
| Launch | January 25, 1969 |
| Commissioning | October 27, 1969 |
| Decommissioning | November 21, 2008 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
400 standard tons |
| length |
45.7 m |
| width |
4.2 m |
| Draft |
4.6 m |
| Diving depth | approx. 915 m |
| crew |
crew of five , two scientists |
| drive |
a nuclear reactor , two propellers |
| speed |
Submerged 3.5 knots |
The NR-1 was a research submarine of the United States Navy . It was commissioned in 1969 and decommissioned on November 21, 2008. The NR-1 was the only research submarine in the world to have a nuclear drive , which allowed it to dive for weeks. In contrast, conventionally powered boats have to surface after a few hours. The submarine could dive up to 915 meters and extend its wheels to remain on the seabed .
The NR-1 was used for both military - some of which are still subject to confidentiality - as well as civilian purposes. With her gripper, she was able to retrieve objects from the ocean floor, such as wreckage after the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger . It was also used to survey the ocean floor, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge .
history
Planning and construction
The construction of the NR-1 was advanced under the highest secrecy in the early 1960s by John Piña Craven and Hyman Rickover , the head of the government agency for ship reactors (NAVSEA-08). In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that the Navy wanted to build a nuclear-powered research submarine, emphasizing the advantages of the propulsion system in exploring the ocean floor. Rickover partially diverted the money required for development from other projects such as a funding basket for the Polaris project in order to circumvent the often lengthy approval by Congress and to allow as little information as possible about the ship to leak to the public. By the time the project was launched, the project had spent $ 99.2 million, including $ 67.5 million on construction, $ 19.9 million on sensors, and $ 11.8 million on research and development. The Navy never published the total costs.
In the summer of 1967 the NR-1 was laid down ; The shipyard was Electric Boat . The research submarine was launched in early 1969 ; Godfather was Rickover himself. The Navy tested the boat over the summer and put it into service that same year, but never officially put it into service. So it was not counted towards the size of the fleet approved by the US Congress and also withdrawn from the control of politics, so that Rickover was able to secure the greatest possible influence on "his" boat. In addition, the boat was never given a name. In the Navy it is called Nervin for a quick pronunciation of the number. The home base was the Naval Submarine Base New London .
Calls
The NR-1 was involved in several research and recovery operations from 1969. Many of the military operations in the Cold War are, however, subject to secrecy. In addition to the recovery of militarily important objects belonging to opposing armed forces from the sea floor, such operations must also have included the maintenance of sensors of the SOSUS eavesdropping system . However, several civilian trips and some military missions of the NR-1 have become known .
Civilian missions
First known civilian voyages took place in 1972 when NR-1 was used to conduct geological and oceanographic surveys on the Newfoundland Bank and Hudson Canyon off New York Harbor . The following year the NR-1 was deployed on the Blake Plateau off South Carolina and later off Puerto Rico . In 1977 the boat submerged off Iceland to measure the mid-Atlantic ridge . On one of these voyages, the geologist Bruce C. Heezen suffered a heart attack , which resulted in his death on board.
In 1980 further diving trips followed on the Blake Plateau, where the NR-1 was used to examine the soil for ore nodules. The following year the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory used the NR-1 for investigations. In the following years, the NR-1 investigated, among other things, the silt drift of the continental shelf, the effects of dumping on the underwater landscape (on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Undersea Research Program ) and for the United States Geological Survey sinkholes on the Blake Plateau . After the Challenger disaster in 1986, the NR-1 searched for, identified and recovered important parts of the shuttle that NASA needed to investigate the cause.
By 1990, Texas A&M University and the University of Maine were allowed to use NR-1 for underwater research. In 1993 the boat examined pipelines in the Atlantic for fault-prone sections. In 1995 Robert Ballard dived in the NR-1 to the wreck of the HMHS Britannic . In addition, the NR-1 discovered several wrecks of Roman ships in the Mediterranean . Around the turn of the year 1995/1996, the NR-1 sailed several times off the Florida Keys before being relocated to European waters again in 1996. The boat helped survey Norwegian fjords , with several wrecks of World War II warships discovered, including 26 within the port of the city of Bergen alone . In 1997 Robert Ballard went to oceanographic surveys in the Mediterranean on NR-1 . In 1999, after the crash of EgyptAir flight 990 , the NR-1 again examined the wreckage of the wrecked Boeing 767 . In 2002 the NR-1 investigated the wreck of the USS Monitor , and in 2007 it explored the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico .
Your last mission started in June 2008 with the search for the wreck of the USS Bonhomme Richard , the flagship of John Paul Jones from the American Revolutionary War . On July 23, the boat returned to New London. The NR-1 examined 26 previously identified by sonar wrecks during this trip. Of these, the crew considered one to be a suitable candidate, which was examined in more detail below. Ultimately, however, it turned out that all of the wrecks were recent.
Military operations
Some of the military missions have become public knowledge. This includes one of the first missions in 1970. The NR-1 drove in the waters around the Azores , where it helped set up the Azores Fixed Acoustic Range , a NATO installation for researching sound propagation underwater. Although the boat was open to the public in the port of Ponta Delgada , Rickover urged it to be kept out of all press releases.
It has also become known that the Navy used the NR-1 to salvage its own technology from the ocean floor. In 1976 an F-14 Tomcat rolled into the sea with the then quite new long-range missiles of the type AIM-54 Phoenix from the flight deck of the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) and lay around 500 meters below the surface of the water. The NR-1 then hid sensitive parts, including the rockets. 1979 and 1985 she buried parts of the first fired submarine-launched ballistic missiles of the type UGM-93A Trident I . In 1984 the powerful sonar was used to locate a propeller lost by a missile submarine .
1994 Compatible NR-1 , the Air Force in the investigation of the cause of the crash with respect to an F-15 Eagle by recovered the ejection seats and other equipment. The US armed forces were thus able to prevent these wrecks and their equipment from falling into the hands of opposing forces or arms dealers.
In 1997 she was looking for the wreck of the Israeli submarine INS Dakar, which sank in 1968 .
Decommissioning
After the last voyage, the NR-1 was towed to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in September 2008 to be prepared for its decommissioning. A formal ceremony was held on November 21, 2008. After the removal of the nuclear fuel in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, it was scrapped in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard . Efforts were made to bring the NR-1 back to Groton and make it available to the public in the US Navy Submarine Force Museum next to the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) . In November 2013, the Navy announced that parts of the submarine will be exhibited in Groton.
Originally it was planned to operate the NR-1 until 2012 and only then to decide on a necessary overhaul or the construction of a successor ship. The Rand Corporation developed an operational concept on behalf of the Naval Sea Systems Command as early as 2002, which should serve as the basis for a possible successor NR-2 . Ultimately, however, the Navy decided that it did not want to finance another nuclear-powered research submarine.
technology
hull
The NR-1 had an overall length of 45.2 meters; the pressure hull was 29.3 meters long, around two thirds of which was accounted for by the drive system. At its widest point, the submarine measured 4.2 meters; the draft was 4.6 meters. The displacement of the small boat was less than 400 standard tons (ts). The NR-1 had as regular, used by the military submarines a tower , of about two meters was high and the hatch was on his. In addition, the downplanes were attached there, as well as the periscope . In order to make the boat look better, the tower and the aft tiller were painted orange.
The hull was made of high-strength HY-80 steel, as it was also used in military submarines of the time (such as the Los Angeles class ). Thus the maximum lay yield strength ( high yield ) at 80,000 pounds-force per square inch (about 550 N / mm²). With a diving depth of up to 915 meters, the NR-1 could dive much deeper than regular submarines. Their diving depth is around 300 meters.
In order to have additional buoyancy in an emergency, the NR-1 carried around ten tons of lead shot, which could then be dropped.
drive
The specialty of the NR-1 was its nuclear reactor . This was designed by Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory and charged batteries via a turbo generator , which in turn powered two 50 HP electric motors with two screws located outside the pressure envelope. The NR-1 used a turbo-electric drive , as otherwise only possessed in the US Navy by the USS Tullibee (SSN-597) and the USS Glenard P. Lipscomb (SSN-685) . The speed under water was less than four knots; Slightly higher speeds could be achieved over water.
The controls were carried out using conventional rudders and rudders ; In addition to the down rudder on the tower, the rudders mounted in a control pad at the stern steered the NR-1 . The boat also had two thrusters each at the bow and stern . The thrusters were each arranged diagonally on both sides.
The reactor was first refilled during an overhaul from 1990 to 1992. Since a filling with nuclear fuel is sufficient for around twenty years, the boat could have been operated from this point of view until 2012.
equipment
To find objects on the sea floor, the NR-1 had powerful, forward and sideways directed sonar systems . A sonar that worked according to the Doppler effect was used to determine the speed over the ground . For the research, the boat had several moving and still cameras as well as powerful spotlights to illuminate the seabed. Both laterally and downwardly, there were observation windows that allowed the crew to observe the surroundings. A retractable, remote-controlled gripper arm could place objects in a basket and retrieve them from the seabed.
In order to remain a longer time directly above the ground, the boat was equipped with two retractable wheels with alcohol-filled truck - tires from Goodyear equipped.
Unlike conventional submarines of that time, the NR-1 had a camera mast as a periscope - in contrast to the usual mirror system.
Crew and mission profile
The NR-1 was piloted by two officers and three ranks; usually there were also two scientists on board. There were three bunks, which were used in shifts by the crew. The NR-1 could accommodate a maximum of 13 people.
The maximum diving time, which is often only a few hours in normal research submarines, reached up to 330 person- days for the NR-1 . Uninterrupted research trips of one month were therefore possible without any problems. This was achieved through the use of the nuclear reactor. The maximum duration of the dive was only limited by the supply of the crew with food and oxygen. Since the frequent ascent and descent was eliminated, the NR-1 was also not dependent on constant weather. It also eliminates the time it takes conventional research submarines to recharge their batteries.
The NR-1 worked together with a tender . For this task, the Navy had chartered the MV Carolyn Chouest through the Military Sealift Command since 1994 . The crew members lived on this during the journey; it also served as a storage facility for equipment and as a communication relay.
Due to its low airspeed, the NR-1 was towed from this ship to its area of operation. The maximum possible speed in tow was thus six knots. For covert operations, the NR-1 could also be towed submerged by another submarine with around four knots.
literature
- Frank W. Lacroix, Robert W. Button, Stuart E. Johnson, John R. Wise: A Concept of Operations for a New Deep-Diving Submarine. RAND Corp. 2001, ISBN 0-8330-3045-0 .
Web links
- Official fact sheet ( memento of June 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) and overview ( memento of July 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) of the US Navy (English)
- Mission reports from 1999 and 2002 from Undersea Warfare (English)
- Overview on fas.org (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Norman Polmar: Cold War Submarines: The Design and Construction of US and Soviet Submarines, 1945-2001 . Brassey's 2005, ISBN 978-1-57488-594-1 . P. 276 f.
- ↑ a b c d Norman Polmar: Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet . US Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2005, ISBN 978-1-59114-685-8 . P. 93 f.
- ↑ Lacroix et al. 2001, p. 16 ff.
- ↑ Navy's Newest Ocean Survey Ship Will Offer Public Tours August 3 for Lamont Community August 4 & 5 at Intrepid Pier ( en ) Columbia Earth Institute. July 14, 2000. Archived from the original on October 12, 2008. Retrieved on November 21, 2010.
- ↑ Navy searches for Jones' famed frigate ( Memento from September 3, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ a b NR-1 returns to Groton base for the last time. In: New London Day , July 24, 2008.
- ^ Joe Wojtas: Search is heating up for Bonhomme Richard (en) , The Day. August 31, 2010. Retrieved November 21, 2010.
