This Day, That Year
Editor’s note: This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up policy.
With the development of submarine technology in recent decades, the nation has witnessed its submarine industry booming and it has also emerged as a leader in terms of underwater exploration.
An item in China Daily shows that China’s first underwater robot, HR-01 (Seaman-01), built by the Shenyang Institute of Automation in Liaoning province in 1985, picked up designated objects from 200 meters below the sea’s surface in 1990.
In June, 2012, manned deep-sea research submersible, Jiaolong, dived to a depth of over 7,000 m.
With attention focusing on construction of the deep-sea scientific research programs, China is accelerating its efforts to explore and map the deep.
In October, one of China’s underwater robots, the Haixing 6000, set a national depth record for a Chinese remotely operated vehicle, by diving 6,001 meters below the surface dur- ing its first research expedition, and completed a series of underwater tasks in three hours.
These tasks included deep-sea observation, biological research, soil and water sample collection, and a “black box search”.
In addition, a team of 59 Chinese researchers returned in October to Sanya, Hainan province, from the Mariana Trench after completing a 54-day, 7,292-nautical-mile deep-sea research mission.
A remote-controlled robot completed a high-definition livestreaming of its journey 10,000 meters under the sea.
“The expedition shows that China is capable of carrying out comprehensive equipment test and scientific research in the deep sea,” said Ding Kang, director of the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.