Inside Vanguard, an underwater “human habitat” designed by British company DEEP, where scientists may one day be able to live underwater for days while conducting research.
To one day allow scientists to stay underwater to conduct research for days on end, the British company DEEP has designed Vanguard, an “underwater human habitat”.
The company unveiled its prototype Wednesday at a hangar in Miami, Florida, in hopes that oceanographers and other researchers can use it to stay underwater for at least a week, instead of just a few hours like most expeditions.
“There are areas in the world’s oceans that are unexplored at these depths, and making them available and accessible to divers will open up a whole new area of science,” Norman Smith, DEEP’s chief technology officer and Vanguard principal engineer, told AFP.
For now, Vanguard is located just 20 meters (65 feet) underwater, a depth accessible by scuba diving, but DEEP is already working on prototypes that can go down to 200 meters (650 feet).
The ship consists of three sections: a living room, a diving center and a base. The first part, measuring 12 meters (40 feet) long by 3.7 meters (12 feet) wide, is where the scientists ate, slept and worked, designed to withstand ocean water pressure to ensure the safety of up to four occupants.
The “dive center” would be connected to the underwater base, which would be anchored to the seabed to protect the entire habitat from waves and storms.
The Vanguard prototype consists of three sections: a habitation chamber, a dive center and a base.
Vanguard will also include a floating structure on the water’s surface to carry compressed air, power the ship and enable communication with the outside world.
When DEEP first deploys Vanguard in the coming weeks off the coast of Florida, the company hopes scientists can use it to carry out long-term underwater conservation projects, such as coral restoration.
© 2025 AFP
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