By Star Chang, posted Jul 28, 2011 at 11:23 PM, 509 views,

China’s Submersible Sets New Diving Record (Video)

A Chinese manned submersible successfully reached a depth of 5,038.5 meters during a test dive conducted in the pacific ocean. The submersible was named ‘Jiaolong’ in Chinese, which means a mythical sea dragon, dived with three people aboard. The oceanauts took photos, shot video, and made a topography scan at the ocean floor in the eastern pacific for about 3 hours. Although much of the craft’s components were produced in China, some had to be imported from aboard such as the underwater high-definition video-shooting and transmission equipment …

Three of the country’s oceanauts piloted the deep-sea submersible ‘Jiaolong’ to an incredible depth below sea level. The Jiaolong features three portholes and external lights, allowing the oceanauts to observe the landscape of the seafloor, while the digital underwater communication and undersea mobility systems allowed the submersible to move back and forth easily under the sea. It has also built with mechanical arm, oceanauts had to train how to manipulate it before embarking on their missions and most of the operations were conducted manually. The oceanauts also have to deal with extreme temperature fluctuations. The submersible’s indoor temperature can be as high as 40 degrees celsius when it is on the ocean’s surface. However, at depths of 3,000 meters or lower, the sub’s temperature can drop to a mild 12 degrees celsius.

The Jiaolong is the world’s first manned submersible designed to reach depths of 7,000 meters below sea level. China is the fifth country to send a man 3,500 meters below sea level, following the United States, France, Russia and Japan. Japan is the current world record holder, whose Shinkai 6500 succeeded in diving to 6,527 meters in August 1989.

The submersible is transported to areas of interest by a larger ship.

The ‘Jiaolong’ prepared diving into the ocean.

A graphic shows how’s the Chinese submersible working under the sea.

Source: China Daily, xinhuanet, China.org.cn