CHINESE JIAOLONG MANNED SUBMERSIBLE

Description

Jiaolong (flood dragon) is a Chinese manned deep-sea research submersible that can dive to a depth of over 7,000 m. It has the greatest depth range of any manned research vehicle in the world, the only manned expeditions to have gone deeper were the dives of the Trieste bathyscaphe (10,916m) in 1960 and the dive of the Deepsea Challenger (10,898m) in 2012, both diving to Challenger Deep. The general designer is Xu Qinan, a former professor of School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who also designed many other Chinese submersibles and unmanned underwater vehicles. Xu is now an academician for the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The first deputy general designer is Cui Weicheng, and the deputy general designer was Zhu Weiqing. On June 27, 2012, the Jiaolong with two oceanauts reached a depth of 7,062 metres (23,169 feet) in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. Previously on June 19, 2012, the Jiaolong reached a depth of 6,965 metres (22,851 feet). It had its first test in South China Sea between May 31 and July 18, 2010, reaching a depth of 3,759 metres (12,333 ft) with three crew. On July 22, 2011, Jiaolong reached a depth of 4,027.31 metres (13,213.0 ft) in northeastern Pacific. The five-hour mission included chemical, physical and biological research. 17 dives have been completed. Besides China, other countries that have developed deep-water technology include the United States, France, Russia and Japan (Scale : 1/72e)