Chinese oceanauts refreshed the country's dive record in a manned submersible by going deeper than 7,000 meters beneath the sea in a successful test dive on Jun. 24.
The Jiaolong, China's manned submersible named after a mythical sea dragon, reached 7,020 meters below sea level at about 11 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) during its fourth dive into the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean.
YANG Bo from IACAS assumed this glorious dive task as one of the three oceanaunts.
On behalf of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the President BAI Chunli of CAS cheers Jiaolong’s success and extends his congratulations and greetings to research participants and dive participants from IACAS.
In this dive, the acoustic systems IACAS researched and developed were stable in function, capable of guaranteeing the success of the dive task.
During the 11 hours of diving, the oceanauts worked for almost three hours on the sea floor, collecting water samples and sediments and placing markers at the bottom of the sea.
The Jiaolong enabled China to join the ranks of deep-sea faring countries. The United States, Japan, France and Russia currently lead the world in the development of deep-sea exploration technology, each possessing their own submersibles and support bases.
Submersibles of Russia and Japan have reached about 6,000 meters below the sea level.
"The breakthrough of diving deeper than 7,000 meters will enable China to conduct scientific surveys in over 99.8 percent of the world's seabed areas," said Liu Cigui, director of the State Oceanic Administration.
