ITP 17 Overview

Deployment Location: 9/15/2007, 3:04 UTC at 86° 1.8’N, 105° 4.6’E

Last Location: 6/28/2009, 20:00 UTC at 63° 38.3’ N, 20° 22.4’ W

Duration: 653 days

Distance Traveled: 12,979 km

Number of profiles: 235 in 36 days (454 attempted in 115 days)

Other instruments: none

ITP17 was deployed on a 1.7 m thick icefloe in the Transpolar Drift from the Russian icebreaker "Akademik Federov" in collaboration with the European Union DAMOCLES Program. The ITP was scheduled for a rapid sampling schedule of 3 one-way profiles between 7 and 760 m depth each day, but became progressively hampered by electronic and mechanical problems so that the profiler could not move from the bottom stop after 5 weeks.  The surface float seems to have been covered by ice at 87°N on December 31, 2007, when it continued to call in but was unable to acquire GPS locations until it resurfaced in the East Greenland Sea near 75°N in July 2008, then drifted into the Irminger Sea until March 2009 when it was removed to Iceland.