New Bedford company's deep sea robots to explore darkest parts of oceans: "Unlocking access to Earth's final frontier"

What lies thousands of feet below the ocean's surface, in some of the deepest and darkest parts of our planet?

That's the question driving the work of a New Bedford, Massachusetts company trying to unlock what many call one of Earth's least-explored places.

Orpheus Ocean is developing autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, designed to explore the deep sea and gather information from places that remain largely out of reach.

"We are unlocking access to Earth's final frontier," said Jake Russell, co-founder and CEO of Orpheus Ocean.

Russell runs the company alongside Casey Machado, the original inventor of Orpheus. Together, they are building robotic vehicles capable of descending into extreme depths to collect images, measurements, and other data from the seafloor.

The challenge is not simply getting there. It's operating in an environment that's incredibly difficult to observe.

"What makes it hard is actually the huge amount of water between us and the bottom of the ocean," Russell said. "Light does not travel very well through water. So you actually have to have physical presence in those areas to do real up close exploration." 

That means the work depends on a combination of engineering, durability, and creativity.

Russell showed off some of the vehicle's key features, including a buoyant main body made from syntactic foam, a high performance material designed to withstand enormous pressure while maintaining flotation at massive depths. Electronics and connections are housed in a junction box, while one of the vehicle's most unusual features is a set of "lander legs" that allow it to settle on the seafloor.

That design choice comes with a tradeoff. The vehicle may not move as fast as some traditional underwater robots, but it gains the ability to land and work directly on the ocean bottom.

The AUVs are designed to reach depths of 6,000 meters, or nearly 20,000 feet. To put that in perspective, that is about the height of Denali, North America's tallest peak in Alaska. The mission is about more than curiosity.

Russell said deep ocean research, once viewed largely as a scientific pursuit, is becoming increasingly important for understanding issues that affect life on shore.

He points to the deep ocean's role in the carbon cycle, questions surrounding deep-sea minerals, and the need to better understand how offshore infrastructure, including offshore wind, may interact with the seafloor.

"We really need to know what goes on down there and be able to get eyes and ears in these extreme places," he said.

That sense of purpose is reflected in the company's name. Orpheus comes from Greek mythology. In the legend, Orpheus descends into the underworld in an attempt to rescue his lover, Eurydice. He does not succeed, but he returns with stories, poetry, and knowledge. 

"That's our goal with Orpheus," Russell said, "to descend into those unexplored depths and bring back that knowledge for humanity."

For Orpheus Ocean, the hope is that the mysteries hidden beneath the sea will not stay hidden forever.