China’s manned submersible returns home with numerous deep dive records

China’s scientific research vessel, “Exploration No.1”, carrying the manned submersible “Deep Sea Warrior” docked in Sanya, Hainan Province on Sunday, after completing its 121-day “TS10 Voyage” scientific expedition. On the voyage, the “Deep Sea Warrior” created a series of new records of Chinese manned deep diving operations.

The “TS10 Voyage”, also known as Southwest Indian Ocean hydrothermal scientific expedition voyage, started on November 10, 2018 and reached a sailing distance of 17,000 nautical miles. The “Deep Sea Warrior” manned submersible, or “Shenhai Yongshi” realized 62 diving operations with an average water operation time of just over nine hours, and an average underwater operation time of 6 hours and 13 minutes. The submersible has created several records on China’s manned deep dive history such as the number of dive operations in a single voyage, the number of dive operations in a month and in a year.

“TS10 Voyage is the first deep dive expedition voyage of China’s manned bathyscaphs covering the Southwest Indian Ocean and the Central Indian Ocean,” represents Liu Zhu, the captain of “Exploration No.1”. A total of 30 scientists, media representatives from China and abroad, as well as three overseas scientists were part of the voyage. During the voyage, three foreign scientists, as starboard scientists, completed six dives in the southwest Indian Ocean Longqi hydrothermal area.

According to Peng Xiaotong, the chief scientist of the TS10 Voyage, more than 400 samples of hydrothermal sulphide and bedrock were collected; nearly 5000 hot liquid large biological samples were obtained; more than 1000 screening culture with different temperatures and substrates were recorded. They also discovered that there is ultra-basic rock near the Longqi hydrothermal area.