Autosub, an automonous underwater vehicle owned by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), being launched in Antarctic waters. Autosub was developed and built by a team of engineers at Southampton Oceanography Centre and was first launched in 1996. It is capable of long unassisted forays under sea ice and ice shelves. It can make oceanographic and geophysical measurements and then return to its mothership unaided. In the Antarctic, it can obtain a detailed and widespread view of conditions and processes beneath the ice shelves.