The Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, Bluefin-21, was forced to resurface this morning to rectify a technical issue.
I understand that the "technical issue" was an over depth or over pressure situation. Evidently the Bluefin follows the bottom at a specific height above the ocean floor and if in so doing it gets too deep it aborts the mission and returns to the surface.
Frankly I'm shocked at how limited the programming is on the Bluefin. Returning to the surface is a huge waste of time and near as I can tell the 2nd worst possible outcome. The worst would be self destruction from over pressure, at least that didn't happen.
I would think that just maintaining a safe depth and skipping over the sections that are too deep would be preferable. Turning around to avoid the deep sections would work as well. This silly thing is kinda like a Roomba that shuts off if it hits a wall...
Putting on my McKayla "not impressed" face...