Twenty years of MSPs: technologies and perspectives

Mission-Specific Platforms (MSPs) have been important members of the scientific ocean drilling family for two decades, operating alongside their impressive siblings JOIDES Resolution and D/V Chikyu. Over this time, 10 MSP expeditions were implemented in 7 different oceans and seas. These MSPs capitalised on alternative platforms and methods, and enabled the scientific community to access new geographical areas and new geological targets that could not be drilled by the JOIDES Resolution or Chikyu. Offshore heave-compensated wireline coring, onshore-mining-style wireline coring, remote seafloor drilling and giant piston coring have all featured on MSP expeditions. Equally diverse were the environments in which these technologies were deployed, from the ice-covered Arctic Ocean to the tropical seas of the Great Barrier Reef, and from the shallow waters of the Yucatan shelf to the ultra-deep hadal depths of the Japan Trench. In this paper we reflect on the diverse technologies of MSPs, how they increased scientific ocean drilling capability in the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (2003−2013) and International Ocean Discovery Program (2013–2024), and the scientific achievements that they enabled.