China’s efforts to boost deep-sea exploration is part of the country’s drive to improve its capabilities for resource accumulation. (Photo : Getty Images)
China is set to outdo itself in deep-sea exploration through its plans to build a deep-sea laboratory, in what emerges as an impressive follow-up to its current undersea submersible "Jiaolong." The undersea lab station is planned to hold up to 12 people and last for months underwater.
National Key Lab for Deep-Sea Manned Equipment director Yan Kai said that the planned undersea lab station will serve as an impressive upgrade to China's deep-sea exploration efforts since Jiaolong can only hold fewer people underwater for just 12 hours, China.org.cn reported.
Yan said that the deep-sea laboratory will be powered either by fuel-cell technology or nuclear power, to enable it to last underwater for months. However, he admitted that the choice of materials for the vessel remains a challenge since underwater pressure is significantly stronger than above-ground.
For that, engineers will need to utilize lightweight material to make sure the undersea lab station can resist high pressure effectively. Also, the vessel needs to have a properly working set of communication and navigation components that can work under the peculiarities of deep-sea exploration.
Ministry of Science and Technology Minister Wan Gang said that the deep-sea laboratory is included as a key project under China's Science and Technology Innovations 2030 project in a national conference held back in January this year, indicating the project's significance to Chinese national interests.
China's efforts to boost deep-sea exploration is part of the country's drive to improve its capabilities for resource accumulation, highlighted by its current efforts to explore Challenger Deep, the world's deepest point. Yibada reported that China is working on a manned submersible to explore the underwater trench.
Although the manned Jiaolong managed to travel the depths of the less deeper Marianas Trench, it's incapable of doing the same for Challenger Deep. The unmanned Haidou-1 remote submersible has by far been China's only vessel that has explored the notoriously deep undersea trench.
