The 2005 data pilot project was a partnership between the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the SAMOS Data Assembly Center (DAC) at the Florida State University. Goals of the pilot project included:

• Developing a data protocol for daily transmission of SAMOS observations from a vessel at sea to the DAC.
  • File transmission via email attachments
  • Files contain all 1-min. averages sampled during one day at sea
  • Using SAMOS version 1 data exchange format
  • Daily transmission to occur just past 0000 UTC
  • Initial vessels: R/V Knorr and R/V Atlantis
• Designing and testing metadata forms and protocols
• Beginning routine daily transmission of SAMOS observations
• Implementing routine data quality evaluation of SAMOS observations prior to public distribution

The ship operations groups at WHOI have developed shipboard scripts to format the SAMOS observations and e-mail this data to the DAC. The DAC is developed near-real time data ingestion, the metadata database, scientific data quality evaluation, and near-real time data distribution systems. The pilot project has concluded and two WHOI vessels continue to provide data on a daily basis. The DAC is actively recruiting additional vessels to participate in SAMOS.