Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ship
The Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ship (MROSS) is a research and surveillance ship currently in development for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. When it enters service in 2024, it will be used by the Royal Navy to research and protect critical undersea national infrastructure, such as undersea cables and gas pipelines, in both British and international waters. Background. With around 380 undersea cables in use across the world, undersea cables play a key role in the global economy by carrying trillions of dollars worth in financial transfers and transmitting 97% of the world's  global communications. The UK, like most countries, is heavily reliant on undersea cables for its telecommunications and so considers them part of its critical national infrastructure. Due to their importance, they represent a potential high value target of hostile state interference and sabotage. In 2015, the Russian Navy commissioned "Yantar", a research vessel which has since been sighted in the vicinity of undersea cables with an alleged capability to tamper with them. In December 2017, UK Chief of Defence Staff Sir Stuart Peach warned that Russia's modernised navy and increased submarine activity in the Atlantic could pose a significant  threat to the UK's undersea cables. He warned that Russia could strike a "catastrophic" blow to the country's economy by cutting, disrupting or wire-tapping its undersea cables. In 2021, the British government published the Integrated Review, a foreign, defence, security and international development policy review, which declared that the ocean was facing pressures caused by climate change and environment degradation, as well as growing tensions around maritime choke points, migration and piracy. This, it stated, negatively impacted livelihoods around the world and impacted the ocean's biological and mineral resources. MROSS will not be the first vessel  used by the Royal Navy for research and surveillance. The navy's Hydrographic Squadron currently consists of five ships: subsea support vessel , inshore and coastal survey vessel , ocean survey vessel and two "Echo"-class survey ships. In the past, the Royal Navy also operated , a specialist diving vessel commissioned in 1983, which took part in clandestine deep diving operations at the end of the Cold War. When she decommissioned in 1990, she left a capability gap which may be filled by MROSS. Development. The Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ship was first publicly announced as part of the Integrated Review, a foreign , defence, security and international development policy review published by the British government in March 2021. The review stated that the ship would help deliver a government commitment to protecting the UK's critical national infrastructure and furthering its knowledge of the maritime environment. It will also be a part of a 30-year National Shipbuilding Strategy and is likely to be built in Scotland. By October 2021, the ship had entered the concept and assessment phase. As such, there exists few details of the ship's confirmed characteristics. However, according to "Forces News", the ship will have a standard complement  of approximately 15 personnel. The ship will also carry advanced sensors and autonomous undersea drones and have an ability to support other defence tasks, such as exercises and operations in the Arctic region. The ship will be primarily designed for survey duties and will assist with the protection of the UK's undersea cables and energy supplies.