The Hi'ialakai was acquired from the U.S. Coast Guard in October 2001, and was converted by NOAA from a T-AGOS surveillance vessel to a versatile platform that supports the research of NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS), National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the University of Hawaii.

The ship operates in the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific Insular area which includes the U.S. Trust Territories of American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Guam. The HI'IALAKAI shares a homeport in Honolulu, Hawaii with NOAA ships Ka'imimoana and Oscar Elton Sette, and is part of NOAA's Marine Operations Center - Pacific (MOC-P) fleet.

Hi'ialakai, Hawaiian for "embracing pathways to the sea," conducts coral reef ecosystem mapping, bio-analysis assessments, coral reef health and fish stock studies. Scuba diving operations play a major role in scientific operations, and HI'IALAKAI is well suited to support both shallow and deep-water dive projects. The ship is equipped to carry 5 to 6 small work boats for transporting divers to and from working areas, a dive locker to store scientific gear and equipment, and an air compressor to fill tanks. The ship also carries a 3-person, double-lock decompression chamber.

Hi'ialakai is outfitted with multibeam equipment to continue the coral reef mapping activities that were initiated in 2002 by the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force. A primary goal is to use the multibeam and backscatter echosounder data to develop a suitable baseline map of the working area. These maps will enable researchers to periodically monitor the reefs to determine whether or not the reef systems are growing or shrinking over time. The coral reef ecosystems are especially important because they support several endemic, threatened, and endangered marine mammals, fish, sea turtles, and birds.