“Octonauts,” the animated preschool series about a crew of eight undersea adventurers whose motto is “explore, rescue and protect,” is getting a seal of approval of sorts from a unit of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The federal agency’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research and the “Octonauts” producer, Silvergate Media, have signed a letter of intent to develop a formal partnership to raise awareness of ocean exploration and science and advance NOAA’s mission. The partnership, to be announced Monday and expected to be completed early next year, includes plans for events at aquariums nationwide, joint development of educational materials and collaboration on new products like games, toys and mobile apps.

NOAA is already supplying images and sounds from its archives for an Octonauts game to be released next year by the toy company LeapFrog, said Kurt Mueller, the creator and executive producer of the “Octonauts” television show. The show is based on the books of the same name by Vicki Wong and Michael Murphy, who write under the name Meomi. In the United States, “Octonauts” is broadcast weekday mornings on Disney Channel’s Disney Junior block.

The unusual agreement, which has no financial component, comes as a fellow agency, NASA, has also begun a less-extensive collaboration with a planned animated preschool series. The space agency is reviewing all the scripts for “Space Racers,” a show about five adventurous spaceships that battle solar storms and visit far-flung space objects, which will be distributed to public television stations in the spring by American Public Television.