MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/. The Research Institute of Rescue and Underwater Technologies of the Russian Navy’s Training and Scientific Center tested new submariner life-saving gear at its experimental base and practiced frogmen’s exits through a submarine’s torpedo tubes and an escape hatch, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Friday.

"The SSP-M submariner gear has been the result of large-scale experimental design work for upgrading the life-saving equipment of the previous generation. A distinctive feature of the new life-saving equipment is the ability of a submariner to exit through an escape hatch wearing this gear from depths of up to 200 meters without a breathing apparatus," the statement says.

The SSP-M gear surpasses its SSP predecessor by such characteristics as the speed of the ascent, thermal properties, ergonomics, the service life and the degree of the submariner’s safety when leaving through an escape hatch and a torpedo tube, according to the statement.

As its major advantages, the SSP-M rescue gear lacks protruding parts in its design, which ensures a submariner’s easy and smooth passage when exiting an enclosing (guide) structure of a hatch, the shorter time of the crew’s preparation for an emergency exit from a submarine: a submariner can put on an SGP-M diving suit without anyone’s assistance and quickly fasten it, the statement says.

The rescue gear’s other advantages include the possibility of a submariner’s independent exit by the free ascent method without using a closed-loop apparatus and a parachute system, the use of the USSP-M insulation that offers a high degree of thermal protection and insulates an individual in water in low temperatures, according to the statement.

The testing of the new life-support gear by specialists of the Research Institute of Rescue and Underwater Technologies of the Russian Navy’s Training and Scientific Center has proven the correctness of structural and technical solutions, the ministry stressed.