submarine

The Komsomolets nuclear submarine sank in European waters almost 40 years ago. The issue is what still frees the sea

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Almost 1,700 meters under the Norwegian Sea lies something more than a sunken submarine. Inside the Komsomolets they continue the nuclear reactor that powered the ship and two torpedoes armed with nuclear warheadslocked in a wreck subjected to salt water, pressure and corrosion for decades. They did not get there because of a secret mission or a failed test, but after an accident that turned one of the great naval feats of the Soviet Union into a problem that we are still trying to understand. The history of the Komsomolets did not end when the hull hit bottom. The reactor releases radionuclides in sporadic episodes, a behavior that current studies have been able to observe and measure with much more precision than in the 1990s. These emissions have not caused a broad impact on the marine ecosystem so far, but the question remains open. Before becoming a flotsamas the remains of a sunken ship are called, the Komsomolets had been one of the most ambitious bets of Soviet naval engineering. It entered service in 1983 with a sturdy titanium helmet and the ability to operate at more than 1,000 meters depth, an exceptional level for a military submarine of its time. According to the BBC’s historical reconstructionNATO hoped that this model would inaugurate a new class of attack submarines, but the Soviet Union never built a second unit. The Soviet submarine that ended up becoming a problem at 1,700 meters deep On April 7, 1989, a fire started in one of her compartments while she was sailing in the Norwegian Sea. The crew managed to bring the ship to the surface, but the fire continued to spread and disabled several systems. About five hours later, the submarine sank. Five sailors tried to escape in a capsule that surfaced, but only one managed to abandon it before it filled with water. In total, 42 of the 69 crew members died. What remained on board may lead us to imagine a nuclear explosion, but current assessments they do not identify a spontaneous detonation as the relevant risk. Such an explosion demands that they work arming and initiation mechanisms with a very specific synchronization. The documented concern is that corrosion will end up allowing radioactive material to escape from the reactor or, in the future, from weapons. The containment intervention chosen years later did not consist of refloating the submarine, but rather isolating its most sensitive areas. In 1994, a Russian expedition used submersibles manned to seal the six torpedo tubes and some holes in the bow section with titanium plates. The objective was to reduce the circulation of water through the compartment where the warheads remained and limit an eventual release of plutonium. It was not a complete closure of the hull, but a containment measure that was still apparently intact when the wreck was inspected in 2019. Decades later, the return to the Komsomolets had a different objective: to observe and measure, not to reseal it. In 2019, a scientific expedition sent to the submarine Ægir 6000a remotely operated vehicle equipped with cameras, manipulator arms and sampling instruments. The robot traveled through different areas of the hull and collected water, sediment and organisms near the reactor and torpedo compartment. Thus it was possible to study the state of the wreck without exposing a human crew to those conditions. The results published this year in PNAS They concluded that the assemblies containing the nuclear fuel are damaged and that seawater has reached the reactor material. The analyzes link this deterioration with intermittent emissions of radionuclides, although researchers are still trying to determine the exact mechanisms that cause them. The highest concentrations appeared next to a ventilation shaft and a nearby grate, but the material dilutes quickly and there is little evidence of accumulation in the surroundings of the wreck. No evidence of military-grade plutonium from the warheads was found in the bow area either. Reaching the Komsomolets is not impossible: the submersibles of the 1990s and subsequent expeditions already demonstrated that work can be done at that depth. The difficulty is determining what action would provide a real improvement and what risks would be involved in intervening on a damaged nuclear structure. As explained by the Norwegian nuclear safety authority to the BBC, there are currently no plans for a new containment operation. The answer is still to go back, measure and monitor how a submarine that has been under the sea for almost four decades changes. Images | Norwegian Marine Research Institute In Xataka | The Norwegian colony that has taken over a town in Alicante and even has its own constitution: L’Alfas del Pi

There’s a reason China doesn’t fire nuclear missiles from its most dangerous submarine. You just broke that rule

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The greatest strength of a nuclear submarine is not its firepower, but that no one knows where it is. This ability to remain hidden for months has made these ships the most important pillar of nuclear deterrence since the Cold War and explains why each movement related to them is analyzed with a magnifying glass. It wasn’t just any test. China has insisted that the launch was part of its annual training and that it had previously notified the countries of the region. However, few maneuvers generate as much attention as the ballistic missile shot from a strategic nuclear submarine into the Pacific Ocean. Not only that, since it was an action practically unpublished in decades. Beijing had been avoiding a public demonstration of this type for years and, precisely for this reason, the test has been interpreted as a message directed far beyond the military exercise itself. The letter that is never shown. Missile submarines are the most discreet and valuable component of any nuclear power. Its main advantage is in remaining hidden for weeks or months, guaranteeing a retaliatory capacity even if the country suffers a first attack. This need to maintain secrecy explains why China has barely made public launches from this type of platform and that each demonstration has enormous strategic weight. The signal was directed to the United States. Although the Chinese authorities they emphasized that the missile carried a training warhead and was not directed against any country, the context tell another story. Western analysts believe that the test was intended to demonstrate that Chinese submarines can now launch very long-range missiles. from nearby areas on its own coasts and continue hitting targets thousands of kilometers away. In other words, Beijing wanted to remind that its maritime deterrence capacity is entering a new phase of maturity. Type 094 Submarine A doctrine designed to reduce risks. Everything indicates that the launch took place from protected waters close to China, a strategy known as “bastion.” Instead of sending its submarines to the center of the Pacific, the idea is to keep them under the cover of national aviation, fleet and anti-missile systems while retaining the ability to attack very distant targets. If the new JL-2 or JL-3 missiles They fulfill the benefits attributed to them by analysts, these submarines no longer need to travel too far from home to reach US territory. Nuclear expansion continues. Because the test comes in full modernization process of Chinese strategic forces. Beijing is building new silos for intercontinental missiles, deploying more advanced generations of land-based missiles and increasing the number of ballistically capable nuclear submarines. Pentagon estimates suggest that the Chinese arsenal could exceed a thousand nuclear warheads before 2030a transformation that is changing the military balance in the Indo-Pacific. The Pacific responds worried. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan reacted criticizing a pitch which they consider destabilizing for the region, despite having received prior notification. The criticism was not directed solely at the missile, but in the context of a rapid increase in Chinese military capabilities and an increasingly visible naval presence in the Pacific. For many governments, the test represents a new step in a show of force strategy that had already included tests of intercontinental missiles and naval maneuvers increasingly distant from Chinese coasts. The real novelty was not the missile. It is known that China has had ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons for years. What is really new is that he has decided show publicly how one of its strategic submarines can use them, something it had almost completely avoided until now. In fact, the demonstration increases the credibility of your ability of retaliation, forces its rivals to assume that these submarines are fully operational and confirms that Beijing is willing to use its military tests as another tool of political and strategic deterrence. Image | PLA In Xataka | Satellite images leave no doubt: China has launched an underwater creature into the sea that defies naval engineering In Xataka | From cultivating the field to sailing underwater: the Chinese farmer who makes homemade submarines in his free time

Europe has realized that nothing matters in technological sovereignty if it does not spend money on something crucial: defending its submarine cables

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There is a type of technological infrastructure that is invisible, but that has become essential in recent years: submarine cables. Conflicts like those of the Red Sea either the ukrainian war have shown that the seabed is a new battlefield. Damaging submarine cables havoc can be wreaked, and the European Union has just outlined its plan to strengthen the security and resilience of these cables. The goal? Track and stop threats in real time, but also repair underwater cables that enemies have attacked as soon as possible. Plan of action. In recent months, Europe has been weaving a plan to protect its submarine cables. These cables carry most of the world’s Internet traffic (an estimated 99%), but also other essential goods such as energy, vital when we want to tackle offshore energy. Hence the importance and, obviously, why the attacks also focus on them. Only in the first months of 2025 were more than a dozen submarine cables cut which seem few, but it really is something that can wreak havoc. And, therefore, Europe started to define an Action Plan with four main categories of action: Prevention: carry out risk assessments coordinated by countries and prioritize the financing of “smart” cables with redundancy. Detection: improve the monitoring capabilities of sea basins such as the Mediterranean or the Baltic to obtain a situation picture in real time. Response and recovery: strengthening rapid repair capacity and improving EU crisis protocols to act in a coordinated manner when a cable is damaged. Deterrence: use diplomacy and ultimately sanctions to respond to hostile acts. With global partners, promote a pact to encourage “cable diplomacy.” Repair of a cable Quick response. But of course, if deterrence does not work, we must act, and more recently, the European Commission has announced the steps to reinforce that strategy that aims to ensure that a damaged submarine cable causes as few headaches as possible. With an allocation of 40 million euros, the Commission seeks to guarantee a rapid and effective response to disturbances of submarine cables in emergency situations through adaptable modules. These modules, like repair kits, will be strategically positioned in various sea basins so that, in the event of a cable break, the ships repairing the cables will have quick access to these modules. It is one more step in a strategy that already had a first pilot call for 20 million euros a few months ago and whose objective was to finance modules in the Baltic Sea. Booster. Another measure will be the installation of the first two regional cable centers. In the Baltic, a Regional Center will be opened that will be responsible for strengthening surveillance and response mechanisms. The idea is that, with an allocation of 2.5 million euros, the information exchange platform and the capacity to both detect and prevent threats to maritime infrastructure will be improved. Finland will be the coordinator of the center together with Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Latvia and Sweden. On the other hand, in the Mediterranean, another center will be supported with 3.3 million euros. The task will be to make decisions, exchange information in real time and the same as in the Baltic: anomaly detection and coordinated response to incidents. Italy will be the coordinator together with Greece, Cyprus and Malta. With the first regional cable centers, Europe moves towards enhanced capabilities, strengthening our ability to detect threats, act faster and respond together – Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice President for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Next steps. In the end, these two strategies are part of a much larger plan in which they had already been assigned 595 million euros to 74 continental connectivity projects. In February of this year, the Commission also advertisement a package of some 347 million euros exclusively for submarine cable projects (construction, monitoring and repair), which shows that it is a strategic, basic infrastructure that fits in with the technological sovereignty plan that Europe is pursuing after seeing associations with allied countries weakened in recent years. Image | What’s Inside? In Xataka | A third of the world’s population cannot read this: the UN reveals that 2.9 billion people have never accessed the internet

80 years ago an American destroyer attacked what it believed to be an enemy submarine. We just discovered it was a sunken ship

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In June 1942, something unprecedented in modern American history happened: someone invaded them. In the middle of World War II, Japanese troops landed on Attu Island, in the extreme west of Alaska. What took place then was an icy and fleeting battle that resulted in the death of more than 3,000 people in less than three weeks. Faced with well-known operations reproduced ad nauseam in cinema on the European front or the South Pacific, the battle of Attu She was and is a great unknown. Eighty years later, the remains of that battle were still sunk on the seabed of the Aleutian Islands. Until nothing ago. The discovery. In July 2024, an archeology team funded by the US oceanographic agency NOAA and the US National Park Service carried out the first in-depth underwater exploration in the waters of Attu. There they found two shipwrecks from World War II: on the one hand, the Kotohira Maru, a Japanese military cargo ship sunk on January 5, 1943 by B-24 bombers. On the other hand, the SS Dellwood, an American cable ship that ran aground on an underwater pinnacle seven months later, on July 20, 1943. Both wrecks lie just 25 kilometers apart from each other. Why is it important. Because the Battle of Attu is probably the least studied campaign of the war and this finding is only the beginning of deeper research. Beyond recovering this military history, this discovery brings to the forefront another little-known tragedy: the one suffered by the Saskinax̂ indigenous people of Attu. After the occupation, the Saskinax̂ were deported to Japan, but when the war ended they were prohibited from returning: Attu had become a US military base. Of the 41 prisoners sent to Japan, only 25 survived and most ended up relocated to another island. Context. Despite being a brief and almost unknown battle, it was the fiercest: the ratio of American to Japanese casualties was the second highest of the war, only surpassed by the famous battle of Iwo Jima, as explained by the research team. The Kotohira Maru was bombed when it was trying to supply the troops isolated in Attu: it was carrying wood, food, fuel and construction materials, essential for the survival of the Japanese soldiers, who endured harsh climatic conditions (it is practically in the Arctic) and almost no trees. For its part, the SS Dellwood ran aground while laying communications cables between islands. In detail. To find the ships, the researchers dragged from their boat a high-resolution sonar capable of “photographing” the seabed with an accuracy of centimeters. When the sonar detected something of interest, they sent an underwater drone to investigate it closely with a video camera. In five days of work they inspected more than 1,000 targets at the bottom. But perhaps the most striking thing was not what they found, but what they solved. In May 1943, the destroyer USS Phelps attacked what it believed to be a Japanese submarine near Holtz Bay. They were wrong: this study has revealed that what the destroyer had detected as a submarine was actually the hull of the Kotohira Maru deposited on the seabed. Yes, but. The study has certain limitations. Strong underwater currents made the remote-controlled underwater robot’s work difficult, especially on the Kotohira Maru, leaving large areas of the wreck undocumented. The team recognizes that they need a more powerful robot to complete the job. There are also unanswered questions. Without going any further, the identity of the Kotohira Maru crew remains a mystery: the files only confirm that two people were rescued, a figure that the study’s own authors consider improbably low. And no one has yet addressed a thorny issue: who has legal sovereignty over these war wrecks. In Xataka | Barcelona started digging to build a parking lot. He ended up discovering a 10 m medieval ship of uncertain origin. In Xataka | The 17th century ship refloated in Cádiz held a surprise for archaeologists. One of more than 50 meters Cover | US Navy and Exploration of Alaska’s World War II Submerged Heritage: The Kotahira Maru and S.S. Dellwood Wreck Sites off Attu Island

Chile approved a direct submarine cable to China. The decision unleashed a diplomatic scandal with the US in the middle of everything

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For decades, Chile has tried to reduce its digital dependence on North America. The arrival of China Mobile as an alternative seemed like a solution to all their problems with the laying of a submarine cable from Valparaíso to Hong Kong. However, the issue has led to a tremendous geopolitical mess that is difficult to deal with. All because the United States had not liked the move one bit. Dependent independence. Almost all of the submarine cable infrastructure that connects Chile with the rest of the world passes through US territory or is in the hands of North American technology companies such as Google, Meta or Amazon. When Chile sought a direct route to Asia, it found that the only viable option passed through China. And of course, that set off all the alarms in Washington. What was being negotiated. China Mobile, a Chinese state telecommunications company, presented a $500 million proposal to lay an underwater cable of about 20,000 kilometers between the Chilean city of Concón and Hong Kong. The project, called Chile-China Express, would have been the first transpacific data connection from Latin America to Asia without passing through North America. The Chilean Ministry of Telecommunications approved the proposal last January. Washington’s response. Just like share Rest of World, two days after Chile signed the concession decree, the ministry annulled it, alleging “a technical error.” According to the mediumChilean officials had been urgently summoned to the US embassy in Santiago. And on February 20, the State Department revoked the visas of the Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications, Juan Carlos Muñoz, along with two other senior officials in the sector. The official notification was that their actions had “compromised critical telecommunications infrastructure and undermined regional security.” Munoz explained to Rest of World that the sanction prevented him from visiting a key country for his work and that it had damaged his reputation. What Chile defended. From Chile’s perspective, the evaluation of the project was an ordinary procedure. Jorge Heine, former Chilean diplomat, pointed out to the environment that diversifying digital communication sources is essential to avoid outages caused by geopolitical tensions. “The State Department entered uncharted territory,” he said, by sanctioning officials for doing their jobs legally. The new president inherits the problem. The change of government on March 11 complicated the scenario even more. The previous president, Gabriel Boric, acknowledged having ordered the withdrawal of approval after threats from the United States about long-term consequences. His successor, the right-wing José Antonio Kast, came to power with the poisoned task of maintaining relations with China, his main trading partner, without raising blisters to the United States (which is his main foreign investor). Complicated. The US ambassador to Chile made it clear shortly after the inauguration that the Chinese cable was “ruled out.” The official position has become more nuanced. The Kast government initially counted on Google’s Humboldt cable, that will connect Chile with Australia in 2027made the China project unnecessary. But more recently, executive sources have acknowledged that the China Mobile project “continues to be evaluated.” Pedro Huichalaf, cybersecurity researcher and former secretary of telecommunications, explained to Rest of World that for Chile “it still makes sense to create redundancy” with a main and a secondary route to Asia. The geopolitical trap. The Google cable does not completely solve the problem. And according to point Heine, intelligence agreements between the United States and Australia mean that South American data trafficking to the Asia-Pacific will continue under American supervision. And there is already precedent for this, since after Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s global surveillance programs, Brazil and the European Union accelerated the deployment of the EllaLink cable to connect directly and avoid passing through North America. How the board looks. China has been expanding its digital presence in Latin America. And the country operates 5G networks and data centers in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina through companies such as China Telecom, Huawei, ZTE and Alibaba Cloud. Brazil, for its part, is promoting its own 35,000-kilometer cable that would connect with China, India, Russia and South Africa. Washington views each of these moves as a threat to its influence in the hemisphere. In fact, just as stands out In the middle, the so-called Donroe Doctrine of the Trump administration formalizes that position by not allowing “foreign adversaries” to use trade as a lever to control critical infrastructure in the region. And in the long term. Just like point Rest of World, the most solid solution for Chile is not to choose between Washington and Beijing, but to reduce dependence on both. Aisén Etcheverry, former Minister of Science and Technology in the Boric government and a technology consultant, told the media that “Latin America has built lasting relationships with a wide variety of partners. Although this provides resilience, it is not enough. Developing its own capabilities must be a priority.” Cover image | aboodi vesakaran and AI generation with Gemini In Xataka | An unexpected salvation for the end user emerges from the memory market debacle: Chinese chips

A submarine has descended to 7,000 meters in the Indian Ocean and has found something unprecedented: a whale graveyard

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The deep ocean remains the great unexplored archive of our planet, and each descent into the abyssal zone has the potential to reveal something unusual that we were not aware of before. This is what has happened to the expedition of the Fendouzhe submersible which has been found in the Diamond Zone, southeast of the Indian Ocean, a large cemetery. What they have seen. After 32 dives to suffocating depths of between 4,616 and 7,001 meters, researchers have mapped an unfathomable megasite with a 1,200-kilometer-long strip strewn with fossils and skeletons. It is, by far, the largest cetacean necropolis ever documented. This discovery has been captured in an article published in Nature where the discovery is described as a “whale necropolis”. However, we are not talking about a single mass burial as a result of a catastrophic event, but rather about a historical sinkhole where the corpses of dying whales have been accumulating for millions of years. The identification. The team identified 476 fossil cetaceans and five active biological communities from recent carcasses in a minimal sampling area. Extrapolating from these figures, scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) estimate that there could be about 750 fossils per square kilometer. In the words of an expert like Stephen Godfrey, according to statements collected by LiveScience: “It’s as if each of these whale falls were a new little restaurant opening along a 1,200-kilometer shopping center.”. A trip through time. The importance of the discovery lies not only in the astonishing quantity of the remains of these whales, but also in their age. Using strontium isotope dating, researchers have been able confirm that some of these fossils are at least 5.3 million years old, dating to the Early Pliocene. Among the recovered bones, which are mainly upper jaws, five species of beaked whales and one species of baleen whale have been identified. But the paleobiological star of the discovery is a extinct speciesnamed as Pterocetus diamantina. Life in death. At 7,000 meters deep there is much more life than we think, but in the form of bacteria. The problem is that the energy that comes from the surface is not in the form of light, but literally whale carcasses that fall under their own weight and feed a large ecosystem. We know that specialized bacteria thrive in the dark by breaking down the oils inside bones and releasing hydrogen sulfide. This chemical energy serves as the basis for a food web that attracts insane densities of organisms that number up to 2,840. individuals per square meter. These include, for example, bone-eating worms or bivalve mollusks. Its importance. According to published notes, the importance of the Diamond Zone is twofold. On the one hand, it vividly documents how a concentrated resource such as a giant corpse can sustain diversity under overwhelming pressures. On the other hand, preserving fossils from the late Miocene and Pliocene provides a large “library” of how whales adapted, grew, and colonized the oceans. Images | Jonathan Hsu In Xataka | Jordi Martí, architect: “A green awning on the terrace is like having a radiator over the window”

After the Titan millionaire submarine disaster, China plans to take more rich tourists 1,000 meters under the sea

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The depths ofto Mariana Trench or exploration from the deep ocean It has always been a thing for scientists and remotely controlled machines. China wants it to stop being so and already has an ambitious plan in motion: taking wealthy tourists to 1,000 meters deep, where sunlight does not reach and where there is no turning back for an engineering failure. The project comes three years after the Titan tragedythe OceanGate submersible that imploded in June 2023 while I was visiting the remains of the titanic in which its five occupants died. Far from stopping its efforts, China is moving forward with a proposal that, unlike the Titan, is backed by decades of naval engineering developed with the support of China. Four highly sought-after seats. Ye Cong, director of the China Naval Scientific Research Center, counted to ChinaDaily that “after more than four years of research, engineers have finalized the structural design” and that, once the prototype is built, “they will carry out sea trials and then improve the design based on the results.” The submersible will have enough space to accommodate four peoplepilot included, so, to begin with, the availability of places is very limited. This shortage of vacancies is expected to contribute to skyrocketing prices for filling each seat. One of the most complex problems of the small submarine has already been solved: the panoramic viewfinder. Your designers they describe it as “one of the most difficult structural codes to decipher on a deep-sea submersible.” And it makes sense since at 1,000 meters deep the pressure is about 100 times greater than on the surface, and that window has to withstand it without giving way. An unprecedented leap into the abyss. This is not the first submersible that Chinese engineers have operated. However, such andhow do they count in South China Morning Post The new projects that are being tested far exceed the depths at which current submersibles operate, which do not go below 20 meters deep. They are used for lakes, reservoirs and shallow coasts, so going from there to 1,000 meters is multiplying the operating depth by 50. The same naval engineering center that is now building this new generation of manned mini-submarines already built The Huandao Jiaolong 1 and 2, two tourist submersibles with capacity for seven passengers and a limit of 40 meters. However, on that occasion, immersion operations were suspended due to regulatory restrictions, but everything learned then has been applied to the new design. China plunges into the field of underwater exploration. The West has been designing submersibles for decades for deep dives. Companies like Deep RoverTriton and U-Boat Worx have been manufacturing submersibles over 1,000 meters since 1985 and until now had no Chinese competition in that segment. The new project developed by the China Naval Scientific Research Center changes that scenario supported by the previous experience of the Jiaolongthe Deep Sea Warrior and the Fendouzhe, three ships that last year completed more than 300 dives around the world and accounted for more than 50% of all manned deep-sea expeditions on a global scale. Ye Cong assured the Chinese news agency that the submersible: “will be a valuable asset for cruise lines, high-end tour operators and oceanographic researchers. It will offer the most demanding travelers an unforgettable experience in ocean exploration.” The prototype should be ready before the end of 2026, with the commercial debut expected before 2030. Much more than a tourist “toy”: it is a key strategy. This submersible is not just a mere product intended for tourist use of millionaires with adventurous concerns. It is part of China’s strategy to become strong in the blue economy, the sector of economic activities linked to the sea, a developing sector in which China seeks to play a leading role in the future. The Asian giant already leads manned deep-sea exploration and wants that this technological advantage is amortized in the form of a private business for their companies. After the Titan catastrophea good part of the luxury underwater tourism industry came to a screeching halt. China is the first to step on the accelerator again in this area, and this project is supported by State resources, which gives it a considerable advantage over projects that, like the Titan, are developed with private funds and investors. In Xataka | There is a new chapter in the Titan submarine tragedy: the memory card of its camera survived the implosion Image | CSSC

the day the US stole a Soviet nuclear submarine 5,000 meters deep

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In the 1970s, a gigantic American ship sailed slowly through the Pacific while several Soviet ships they watched him a few meters away, taking photos and listening to every conversation. On deck, the sailors talked loudly about rocks on the seabed and collected samples so that everything seemed routine, without anyone suspecting that, right under their feet, one of the most unusual operations of the entire Cold War. An impossible robbery. At the end of the 60s, in the middle of the Cold War, the United States secretly located the Soviet submarine K-129 sunk to more than 5,000 meters deep in the Pacific, a distance that made any recovery attempt practically unfeasible. Even so, the strategic value it was hugesince the submersible carried nuclear missiles, codes and key technology that could tip the balance at a time of nuclear parity between superpowers. With that goal in mind, the CIA launched the Azorian Projectan operation so ambitious that for years only a small circle within the Government knew of its existence. Context. In reality, the mission, which lasted more or less six years, had begun in 1968, when the K-129 loaded with ballistic missiles disappeared without explanation somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The situation was not entirely strange if we think that, at that time after the Cuban Missile Crisisboth American and Soviet submarines patrolled the high seas with nuclear weapons on board, prepared for possible war. Model of the sunken and deteriorated submarine K-129 The sinking. There are reports indicating that it was due to a mechanical failure, such as the missile’s engine accidentally starting, while the Soviets suspected for a time that the Americans had acted in bad faith. Be that as it may, and after two months, the Soviet Union abandoned the search for the K-129 and the nuclear weapons it carried, but the United States, which had recently used Air Force technology to locate two of its own submarines sunken, located the submarine 2,400 kilometers northwest of Hawaii and 5,030 meters deep. According to the declassified history of the project by the CIA decades later, “no country in the world had managed to recover an object of this size and weight from such depth.” Sherman Wetmore, chief engineer of the Glomar Explorer, looks at an oil painting of the ship refloating the Soviet submarine The great theater of lies. Once Washington found its location and in order to hide the true purpose, one of the more elaborate covers of history: an alleged underwater mining mission led by the eccentric millionaire Howard Hugheswhose reputation made any extravagant project credible. As? The enormous was built Hughes Glomar Explorerpresented to the world as a ship capable of extract manganese nodules from the seabed, while in reality it hid inside a secret system designed to capture the submarine. The operation was so convincing that even influenced markets and universitiesfeeding for years the illusion of a new mining industry that was never actually the objective. Details of the construction plan of the Glomar Explorer (reproduction), from 1971. In the lower central part of the ship, you can see the plans of the so-called “lunar pool”, into which the claw could introduce the submarine The giant claw. The heart of the mission was, possibly, the most exciting part of an already incredible story. It was a device hidden under the boat: a gigantic mechanical “claw” capable of descending kilometers to the ocean floor, hugging the hull of the submarine and raising it through a complex system of pipes and cables. The entire process had to be executed out of sight, using an internal opening in the ship (the called “moon pool”) that allowed working completely hidden, even under the constant surveillance of suspicious Soviet ships, but they couldn’t prove anything. There is no doubt, the operation required extreme precision, withstanding colossal stresses and maintaining the ship’s position in the open sea for days, something that in itself already represented an unprecedented technological challenge. Everything (almost) ready. In the summer of 1974, after years of preparation, the CIA managed to reach the submarine and hooked it with the claw, at which point he began to slowly raise it towards the surface, in an operation that lasted days and kept the entire crew tense. However, halfway through the ascent, the structure gave way and much of K-129 fell back to the ocean floor, leaving only a recovered section. Even so, they managed to rescue remains of the helmet and bodies of several Soviet sailors, who were buried with honors at sea, while the real loot (the missiles and secret codes) was shrouded in uncertainty and absolute secrecy by the United States, since many of the details remain classified today. “We neither confirm nor deny.” The biggest twist in history came when the operation came out in 1975 after leaks and thefts of documents linked to the business cover, forcing the US Government to face a most delicate diplomatic situation. However, instead of admitting or denying the theft of a Soviet nuclear submarine more than 5,000 meters deep, Washington adopted a response that would go down in history: “We neither confirm nor deny”a formula designed to avoid direct tensions with Moscow and which has since become a standard in intelligence matters. That calculated silence It encapsulates the essence of the entire operation: a gigantic mission, almost impossible on paper, visible to everyone in appearance, but whose true purpose and results remain, to a large extent, hidden from the general public. The legacy. Although he Azorian Project did not recover the entire submarine, it left a deep mark on history of espionage and engineeringamong other things because it demonstrated that it was possible to operate at extreme depths and execute missions of a unprecedented complexity. Of course, it also demonstrated the extent to which the Cold War promoted radical technical solutions and operations that bordered on the improbable, in a race for gain strategic advantage at any price between both sides. Decades later, it remains one … Read more

studies a huge submarine cable with distant Ireland to stop being an energy island

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Spain may have emerged as one of the EU states that more and better have understood and adopted the energy transition towards renewables, but there is an unquestionable geographical reality: The Iberian Peninsula is an energy island which has a problem called France. A bottleneck that prevents Spain from exporting its enormous surplus of solar energy, so the European Commission wants to correct it with ambitious connection goals for 2030. How? Looking at the sea that surrounds the peninsula in search of partners “to lend a helping hand” to solve this limitation: across the Mediterranean with two gigantic connections to Italy and also towards the Atlantic, with a cable between Spain and Ireland. The future cable between Spain and Ireland. The planned route would link the northern coast of Spain, specifically Asturias, with the southern coast of Ireland, with an estimated length of between 1,000 and 1,100 kilometers, as collects The Energy Newspaper. Although there is no defined route yet, the infrastructure will have to navigate considerable depths in the Bay of Biscay and the Celtic Sea. Go ahead that the agreement signed between Spain and Ireland It is a Memorandum of Understanding to study the feasibility of an underwater electricity cable within the framework of the WindEurope 2026 congress held in Madrid signed by the Spanish vice president Sara Aagesen and the Irish minister Darragh O’Brien. Why is it important. Because both Spain and Ireland share a structural problem: they are one of the least interconnected electricity markets in Europe and are classified as “energy islands” by the EU, which limits their ability to export renewable surpluses and reinforce their security of supply (friendly reminder: the blackout). From the point of view of energy security, more interconnection means less dependence on imported fossil fuels and more resilience in the face of shortages. This cable would diversify Spanish export routes, a detailed priority objective in REE Electrical Planning. The energy logic of the project rests on the complementarity of renewable resources: Spain would export solar surpluses and Ireland would provide electricity generated in its offshore wind farms. Both technologies have generation profiles decoupled in time, so the exchange is technically valuable to stabilize both electrical networks: when the sun shines in Spain, it can power Dublin, when Atlantic storms sweep the north, its wind turbines can sustain Spanish industry. Context. Spain currently has barely 3,000 MW of interconnection capacity, which represents a ratio of 2%, according to REE dataon its installed mix of approximately 150 GW. That is to say, it fails to meet the minimum target of 10% set by the EU for 2020 and has to work a miracle to reach the 15% planned for 2030. This chronic deficit limits the capacity of the Spanish system to export the growing surpluses of wind and solar energy. The project arises at a time of maximum urgency for energy independence after the gas crisis. Recent war conflicts have led the EU to accelerate the processing of large electrical interconnections between European markets as a tool for collective energy security in search of self-sufficiency with its own resources. Initiatives like the plan REPowerEU They have these cross-border interconnections as one of the levers with absolute priority. Map of transmission and storage projects. ENTSO-E Main connections in Spain. A brief summary of the very few electrical connections of the Spanish state with other EU states: Existing: Spain–France (Pyrenean land interconnection), with a current capacity of approximately 3,000 MW through the Pyrenees and Spain – Portugal, through various bidirectional land high voltage lines that make up the Iberian market. Under construction or approved: the submarine cable of the Bay of Bizkaia between Spain and France, scheduled to enter service in 2028, will add 2,000 MW of additional capacity with France. The wire Fontefríabetween Portugal and Galicia, will provide about 1,000 MW of exchange. Projected (under study or preliminary phase): Apollo Link between Spain and Italy, of 2000 MW and entering service in 2032. Iberia Link between Spain and Italy of 1,200 MW. Trans-Pyrenean land connection through Navarra and Aragon, blocked by the French government. How are they going to do it?. Technically, the project would be executed using a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable, the standard technology for long-distance underwater interconnections, due to its lower energy loss in transportation compared to alternating current. There are direct and operational precedents of a similar scale, such as the recent Celtic Interconnector between Ireland and France. After signing the Memorandum of Understanding to study the viability of an underwater electricity cable that links both states, the project must be technically and economically evaluated jointly by Red Eléctrica and EirGrid, the operators of both states. They will then present it to the European authorities for possible inclusion in the list of Projects of Common Interest (PCI), which would give it access to European funding and accelerated administrative procedures. ENTSO-Ethe association of European network operators, publishes every two years the Ten-Year Network Development Planthe technical reference framework to prioritize and evaluate this type of projects. Yes, but. The project is in its earliest phase, which means that it has everything ahead of it and a submarine cable is a major technical and economic infrastructure. A cable of more than 1,000 kilometers in length implies an estimated investment that would exceed 2,000-3,000 million euros, a construction period of several years once approved and logistical challenges in North Atlantic waters. Furthermore, the route through Asturias would require reinforcing internal transport networks to cross the Cantabrian Mountains to connect with the large solar generation centers in the interior of the peninsula. In Xataka | The submarine cables belonged to the teleoperators, and now the big technology companies are controlling them In Xataka | The first great Atlantic submarine cable that connected us to the internet says goodbye for a simple reason: it was too expensive to repair it Cover | ENTSOE

95% of intercontinental internet traffic goes through submarine cables. China has just proven that it can cut them at 3,500 meters

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The world is connected through the “invisible”, almost omnipresent and seemingly omnipotent internet. But it turns out that 95% of data traffic runs through cables that, although not visible, are very tangible: the submarine fiber optic cables that run around the world. This strategic infrastructure is inherently vulnerable due to its vast extent in unmonitored environments. Until recently, threats were limited to random accidents in shallow waters, but sabotage are the order of the day. In this scenario, China has just marked a technical milestone that is a warning to sailors: has tried successfully a submarine cable cutter who plays in another league. Thus, it is capable of cutting with high precision and operating at depths of up to 3,500 meters. The tool. The system that China through its Haiyang Dizhi 2 scientific vessel is an electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA), a compact device that integrates the hydraulic system, the electric motor and the control unit in a single piece, a combo that as explained The South China Morning Post allows you to get rid of the external oil pipe common in this type of system. The Ministry of Natural Resources of China explains for the Chinese media that last Saturday, April 15, its first mission in deep waters was carried out. This is not the first deep underwater cable cutter we have seen from China, in fact it has them to cut even deeper seabeds: the China Naval Scientific Research Center (CSSRC) and the State Key Laboratory of Deep Sea Manned Vehicles also developed a little over a year ago a vessel that uses a diamond coated grinding wheelcapable of operating at depths of 4,000 meters. Why is it important. We have already glimpsed in the intro that currently, practically the entire of intercontinental data traffic travels over submarine cables. He Center for Strategic and International Studies gives an example of its importance: in the financial environment, approximately 22 trillion dollars move per business day through these systems. Any disruption can unleash chaos on entire countries, leading to digital isolation, collapsing financial systems, degrading military capabilities… much more than a simple cyberattack. Underwater cables are inherently vulnerable due to their exposure and with these types of systems not even depth is a guarantee. Furthermore, repair at a depth of 3,500 meters is slow and expensive, requiring specific vessels that are not plentiful. context. Since 2024, China and its vessels have become common suspects in cases of alleged sabotage. Two examples: is in the Baltic and is in waters near Taiwan. These events have generated growing concern in NATO on the security of these essential undersea cables from hybrid warfare tactics. China, for its part, justifies this development as part of its scientific research and deep-sea mining program through the Chinese Academy of Sciences: the ability to cut cables is necessary for the recovery of stuck equipment, cleaning marine debris, and preparing the seabed for deep-sea mining. However, it is inevitable to think about the duality of its functions. chow they do it. In 2020, a team of engineers from Lishui University, in the coastal province of Zhejiang, opposite Taiwan, developed a device for cutting underwater cables by drag (one of several patents in recent years made in China) and in the patent application The team said that “The traditional cutting method requires first detecting the position of the cables, then excavating and recovering them to cut them. The process is complex, a lot of expensive equipment is needed, and the cost is too high. A fast and low-cost cutting device for submarine cables is needed to perform this task.” These new tools seek to solve this as they operate directly on the cable on the seabed without the need for extraction. In the 30-day mission of the Haiyang Dizhi 2 vessel, in addition to testing the cutting tool, they also tested an autonomous underwater vehicle called Hai Ma, recovered 16 self-developed measurement probes and deployed China’s first deep-sea winch with 11,000 meters of coaxial cable. Yes, but. The fact that there are patents and tests on tools to cut marine cables at great depth and efficiency does not mean that they have been used in these incidents, although it does indicate an interest in cutting them. China has a known official position, as we saw last year when a similar tool came to the fore. At that time Liu Pengyu, declared that the device is used in marine scientific research and that both the United States and several European countries have similar technology. Likewise, it highlighted the importance that China gives to protecting underwater infrastructure and its commitment to the international community to protect them. In Xataka | The submarine cables belonged to the teleoperators, and now the big technology companies are controlling them In Xataka | The first great Atlantic submarine cable that connected us to the internet says goodbye for a simple reason: it was too expensive to repair it Cover | seatools and CCTV

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