China’s Manned Deep-sea Submersible, the Jiaolong Driven by Ye Cong and Tang Jialing Kicks off its First Experimental Application Voyage Test

On June 17th and 18th, manned submersible“jiaolong”executed its first First experimental application voyage test and was smoothly back to deck of the mother ship from underwater of cold seeps in South China Sea. Our school alumni Ye Cong, Tang Jialing respectively were the main drivers in the first and second dive. Theseare the success dive of “Jiaolong”for the 53th and 54th time.

There are three main purpose: first, validate the submersible; second, test the submersible’s long baseline positioning system; third, exercise the driving skills ofthe oceanauts in the seamount topography .

Jiaolong's first experimental application sail began on June 10th, which is divided into three segment and is expected to take 113 days. In the first segment, in the south China sea to carry out the there will be the positioning system test and research about “ The South China Sea Deep Science Program” in the South Sea of China, including the investment of the underwater ecosystem, biological, terrain and so on.

On June 17th, the underwater operation of “Jiaolong”lasted for four hours. The commander in chiefsaid , ”This dive overfulfilled the scheduled tasks. First, the submersible technology condition wasverified to be stable; Second, the long baseline positioning system for the first time test is successful and accurate; Third, the oceanauts’s driving skills are expertly andthe submersible has climbed to the top of the more than 300 meters-high mountain. Besides, It is the first time that the manned submersible found the cold seeps in this area and found a lot of mussels, spider crab and other sea creatures, which supports the study of the deep sea biological communities and cold seeps greatly .

On June 18th, Jiaolong carriedits first "passenger"---professor Zhou Huaiyang of Tongji University. The dive is mainly for the long baseline positioning system performance verification and carrying scientists diving for the first time to collect the samplesin the cold seepsandthe related environmental parameters.