Article Posted on : - May 20, 2011

China’s Jiaolong submersible

BEIJING (BNS): China’s Jiaolong submersible will attempt a 5,000-meter dive in July, according to a news report Friday.

The Jiaolong named after a mythical sea dragon, is a manned deep-ocean submersible designed to reach a depth of 7,000 meters below sea level.

The vessel has completed 17 dives in the South China Sea from May 31 to July 18 last year, with the deepest reaching 3,759 meters with three crew members on board.

With the sea tests China has become the fifth country possessing a manned submersible capable of diving deeper than 3,500 meters.

The Ministry of Science and Technology and the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) will decide the area for the manned dive, Xinhua quoting head of SOA Liu Cigui, said.

The Jiaolong operates with a mother ship Xiangyanghong 09, an oceanographic research ship. It is about 8.2 meters long, 3 meters wide and 3.4 meters high and can remain submerged for up to 12 hours, reports said.

If tests prove successful, Jialong will be the deepest diving submersible in the world, diving deeper than the Japanese Shinkai 6500, which can dive to 6,500 meters and the American submersible Alvin which can dive to 4,500 meters.