China’s polar analysis group has accomplished the nation’s first-ever cooperative operation of deep-sea manned submersibles, considerably advancing collaboration and its capabilities in deep-sea circumstances.
The group returned to port on Monday following a 98-day mission at sea, a lot of which was inside the Arctic Circle.
The world’s first ice-breaking manned deep-sea submersible assist vessel, Tansuo 3, set sail on July 22 carrying the China-developed submersibles Fendouzhe and Jiaolong. The 15,000-nautical-mile mission was collectively organized by the Ministry of Pure Assets and the Chinese language Academy of Sciences, with the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering of the CAS serving because the main establishment.
Throughout the expedition, the group operated within the Arctic Ocean for 56 days, navigating 1,989 nautical miles by ice-covered waters and conducting a collection of scientific investigations and experiments. Its work included 43 dive missions utilizing the Fendouzhe and China’s first dive within the Arctic by the Jiaolong group.
Crucially, Jiaolong and Fendouzhe additionally carried out cooperative operations, together with dual-submersible positioning searches, marker exchanges and underwater movement filming. The joint effort marked China’s first-ever deep-sea manned submersible collaboration.
On the Arctic’s central basin, the place sea ice protection exceeds 80 %, the group undertook the world’s first manned deep-sea exploration of Gakkel Ridge — the tectonic plate boundary between the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate.
Over 29 days, Fendouzhe accomplished 32 dives, averaging greater than 9 hours of submerged operation and 6 hours of seabed work per dive, and reaching a most depth of 5,277 meters. The deep-dive operations spanned the polar day, polar evening, ice soften and freeze-up durations, enduring excessive winds and excessive chilly.
The expedition validated the operational capabilities and utility worth of the Fendouzhe and Tansuo 3 in polar ice-covered areas, attaining breakthroughs in a collection of domestically developed assist vessel and submersible applied sciences for deep-sea polar analysis.
The group has established operational protocols for the Fendouzhe below excessive polar circumstances. As well as, it has pioneered a cellular ice-diving mannequin that includes “assist vessel-submersible coordination” in dense ice zones for exact navigation and protected ascent, increasing the operational window and exploration scope.
The collaborative effort cultivated a specialised polar deep-diving analysis group, making China the one nation worldwide to conduct steady manned submersible operations in Arctic dense ice zones, thereby solidifying its international management in manned deep-sea know-how.
Leveraging the high-precision and routine operational benefits of the Tansuo 3 and the Fendouzhe, the group collected a variety of treasured water, sediment, rock and organic samples, together with intensive observational knowledge.
These will present important scientific assist for learning speedy Arctic local weather change, geological processes on the Gakkel Ridge below ultra-slow spreading circumstances, in addition to evolutionary and adaptive mechanisms of polar life.
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