STENNIS, Miss. (NNS) -- Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. John Richardson toured the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) as well as other Navy commands at Stennis Space Center, Jan. 8.
Commands Richardson visited included: Fleet Survey Team, Naval Oceanography Mine Warfare Center, Naval Oceanography Operations Command, Special Boat Team-22, and the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School.
Richardson has only been in office since September 2015 and chose to explore naval oceanography at Stennis as one of the first stops on his tour.
He visited NAVOCEANO's Glider Operations Center, where pilots direct unmanned littoral battlespace slocum gliders worldwide using Department of Defense Iridium satellite communications. NAVOCEANO currently has the largest fleet of gliders in the world.
He was also updated on NAVOCEANO's use of autonomous underwater vehicles including remote environmental measuring units that support the Navy's need for littoral operations.
His tour ended with a visit to the Joint Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Technical Center of Expertise located at Stennis International Airport, where NAVOCEANO's Airborne Coastal Surveys program is based and is used to survey large areas of the littoral seafloor.
NAVOCEANO, comprised of approximately 1,000 military, civilian and contractor personnel, is responsible for providing oceanographic products and services to all elements within the Department of Defense.
For more news from Naval Oceanographic Office, visit www.navy.mil/local/navo/.