Officials at the Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have confirmed that the centre has begun considering possible replacements for the two aging vessels in its science fleet.
The new assets that are slated to replace the deep-ocean research vessel Alliance (pictured) and the smaller coastal research vessel Leonardo will be selected depending on how well they will satisfy the centre's capability requirements with regards to data acquisition and conducting at-sea scientific activities.
Alliance and Leonardo were originally acquired in 1986 and 2002, respectively, when the CMRE was still operating as the NATO Undersea Research Centre. Besides research, the vessels' functions include testing of passive sonar-based submarine detection systems.
