A team of imaging experts, scientists and historians is setting sail for the Titanic on Friday to compile the most detailed photographic record ever made of the wreck.
The BBC has been given exclusive access to members of the expedition here in the US city of Providence, Rhode Island, as they prepare to leave port.
They will use cutting-edge technology to scan every corner of the famous ocean liner and gain new knowledge about its sinking.
This will be the first commercial mission to the Titanic since the OceanGate tragedy last year. Five men died while trying to visit the lost ship in a state-of-the-art submersible.
A joint memorial service will be held at sea in the coming days for them and the 1,500 passengers and crew who went down with the Titanic in 1912.
The new expedition is being led by the American company that has exclusive salvage rights and that To date, some 5,500 objects have been recovered from the shipwreck.
But this latest visit is purely a reconnaissance mission, says Atlanta, Georgia-based RMS Titanic Inc.
Two robotic vehicles will dive to the ocean floor to capture millions of high-resolution photographs and make a 3D model of all the debris.
“We want to see the wreck with a clarity and precision that has never been achieved before.“, explained the leader of the co-expedition, David Gallo.
The logistics vessel Dino Chouest will be the base of operations in the North Atlantic.
Weather permitting, the ship is expected to spend 20 days on the wreck, which lies in 3,800 m (12,500 ft) of water.
It will be an emotional few weeks for everyone involved.
One of the five who died on the OceanGate submarine was Frenchman Paul-Henri (“PH”) Nargeolet. He was the director of research for RMS Titanic Inc and was to lead this expedition.
A plaque will be placed at the bottom of the sea in his honor.
“It’s difficult, but the thing about exploration is that there’s an urgency and a drive to keep going. And we do it because of that passion that PH had for continued exploration,” explained friend and historian Rory Golden, who will be the “official morale boss” for Dino Chouest.
A perfect catch
There can be few people on Earth who do not know the story of the supposedly unsinkable Titanic and how it was punctured by an iceberg, east of Canada, on the night of April 15, 1912.
There are countless books, films and documentaries about the event.
The wreck site has been the subject of repeated studies since its discovery in 1985, but there is still no definitive map.
Although the bow and stern sections of the damaged ship are well known, There are large areas of the surrounding debris field that have received only cursory inspection.
Two six-tonne remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) aim to solve this problem.
One will be equipped with an array of ultra-high-definition optical cameras and a special lighting system; the other will carry a sensor package including a lidar (laser) scanner.
Together, they will explore a section of seabed measuring 1.3 kilometres by 0.97 kilometres.
Evan Kovacs, head of the imaging program, says its camera systems should produce millimeter resolution.
“If all the weather gods, the computer gods, the ROV gods, the camera gods, if all those gods align, We should be able to capture the Titanic and the wreck site as close to digital perfection as possible“Literally counting grains of sand,” he told BBC News.
There is great anticipation for what the magnetometer on board the ROV sensor might produce. This is the first time this has happened with the Titanic.
The instrument will detect all metals at the wreck site, even material buried out of sight in the sediment.
“It would be a real dream to determine what happened to the bow of the Titanic under the seabed.“explained geophysical engineer Alison Proctor.
“Hopefully, we will be able to deduce whether or not the bow was crushed when it hit the seabed, or whether it might actually extend intact into the sediment.”
The team wants to check the condition of some known objects in the debris field, such as the steamship’s boilers that spilled out when the opulent ocean liner broke in half.
Reconstructing history
There is also a desire to locate items believed to have been sighted on previous visits. These include an electric chandelier, which would have been a fascinating curiosity in its day, as well as the possibility of a second Steinway grand piano.
The wooden frame of the musical instrument would have long since deteriorated, but the cast iron plate or frame that held the strings should still be there, perhaps even some of the keys.
“For me, what matters most are the passengers’ possessions, especially their suitcases,” said Tomasina Ray, curator of the company’s collection of Titanic artifacts.
“It is their belongings – if we can recover more in the future – that help give shape to their stories. For many passengers, they are just names on a list, and it is a way to keep them meaningful.”
This will be RMS Titanic Inc’s ninth visit to the wreck site. The company has sparked controversy in recent years over its stated desire to attempt to recover some of the Marconi radio equipment that transmitted the distress calls on the night of the sinking.
It won’t happen on this expedition, but if it does, it would mean extracting an object from inside the disintegrating ship.
For many, the Titanic is the grave of the 1,500 people who died that night in 1912 and should not be touched, especially its interior.
“We understand that and we understand it,” said company researcher James Penca.
“We dived into the Titanic to learn as much as we could about the ship, and as you should with any archaeological site, we did so with the utmost respect. But to leave her alone, to let her passengers and crew be lost to history… That would be the greatest tragedy of all.“.
Additional reporting by Rebecca Morelle and Kevin Church
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