Mini-submarine crosses successfully the Atlantic

For the first time in history an unmanned submarine successfully traversed the Atlantic ocean by using the drift currents. The mini-submarine was retrieved on Friday from Spain's waters. The underwater device was powered by batteries used to modify the buoyancy in order to catch the Atlantic currents. During its 7 month trip, the glider measured the ocean temperature and the salinity. From time to time it was going up to water surface with the purpose of broadcasting the recorded data from an onboard computer to the satellites. Knowing the temperature of the North-Atlantic helps improving the weather prediction map for West Europe. The sub left New Jersey in April 2009 and was recovered on 04 December 2009 in the Spain's port of Baiona. The travelled distance was 7410 km and the total costs including also the submarine construction raised up to $200000. A similar mission was tried in 2008 but it failed with the submarine never being recovered.
Video mini-submarine Atlantic crossing and how sharks can threaten the device.