NOAA has awarded $59.8 million to Manson Construction Company to renovate the agency’s pier facility in North Charleston, South Carolina. The pier is integral to safe and efficient research ship operations in the area, with work expected to be completed in 2026. The renovations will include demolishing and building a new pier that includes shoreside power for ships, as well as a warehouse, sea wall and living shoreline, and other supporting infrastructure. Reconstruction of the pier and other facility upgrades will allow NOAA ships Ronald H.

Nautical charts that help keep mariners safe. Data to inform commercial and recreational fishing. Never before seen species found deep in the ocean. Ensuring safe shipping routes so ports can reopen following a storm.

NOAA Marine and Aviation Operations will hold two hiring events in New England in September to recruit professional mariners to work aboard NOAA’s ocean research ships. The first event will be in Fairhaven, Massachusetts on Sept. 26 and the second in Warwick, Rhode Island on Sept. 28.

Qualified applicants may receive a tentative job offer.

Update #5: Sept. 7, 2023 - 10:45 p.m. ET

Federal, tribal, state and local officials joined NOAA leadership on Aug. 21 to cut the ribbon on the agency’s newly renovated port facility in Ketchikan, Alaska. The celebration was held to dedicate the facility and recognize the important partnerships in the area. The facility will provide vessel support for NOAA research ships.

NOAA will add two new ships to its fleet of groundbreaking research vessels. The agency selected Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors, LLC. for a $624.6 million contract to initially design and build two cutting-edge research vessels, with an option to purchase two more. The first two ships will be built in Houma, Louisiana, with an expected delivery date of 2027 and 2028. Learn more here.

NOAA, the U.S. Navy and Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors (TMC), LLC., held a keel-laying ceremony today in Houma, Louisiana, for Discoverer, a new oceanographic research vessel being built for NOAA. The keel-laying ceremony marks the beginning of a ship’s construction. Second Gentleman Douglas C. Emhoff was named the ship’s sponsor.

NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson, a seafloor mapping and charting ship, completed a series of surveys in the Great Lakes in 2022. In all, the ship surveyed 450 square nautical miles of lake bottom in Lake Erie and 274 square nautical miles in Lake Ontario.

Civilian professional mariners play a critical role in the operation of NOAA's fleet of research and survey ships. Check out this profile contributed by NOAA Fisheries of Josh Cooper, a member of NOAA Ship Oregon II’s deck team. 

NOAA divers conducted numerous coral and seafloor habitat studies in the Mariana Islands as part of the Rainier Integrates Charting, Hydrography, And Reef Demographics, or RICHARD, mission supported by NOAA Ship Rainier in 2022. Learn more about the mission in this story map.