HAIKOU, November 28. /TASS/. The South China island of Hainan hosted the participants in the successfully completed mission of the manned bathyscaphe Fendouzhe, which in November studied the most powerful tectonic fault on our planet — the Mariana Trench. According to the Hainan Institute of Deep Sea Research and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, on Saturday, the crew safely arrived at the port of Sanya.
The bathyscaphe was delivered by the research vessel Tanso-1 at 08:30 am local time (03:30 Moscow time). During the implementation of this scientific project, Fendouzhe set a new dive record for China, sinking into the Challenger Abyss to a depth of 10,909 m.
There were three people in the bathyscaphe who sent their team photos to the surface. The machine surveyed the bottom, using two mechanical tentacles to collect samples of rocky rock, ocean flora and fauna. As the designers have specified, it can be continuously under water for 10 hours and during this time it is able to perform a fairly large amount of work.
Chinese scientists are gradually improving technology and achieving ever deeper immersion in the Mariana Trench. Previously, Fendouzhe showed the best result for China on October 27, reaching 10,058 m. In this part of the Pacific Ocean, other manned vehicles were also tested, including Jiaolong, which sank to 7,062 m in 2012.
However, the absolute world record still belongs to the Five Deeps expedition, led by a 54-year-old American Victor Veskovo. In May 2019, he single-handedly sank to 10,928 meters. This is 16 meters deeper than the previous unrivaled figure, which Don Walsh and Jacques Piar achieved in 1960 on the Trieste deep-water submarine.
Challenger Abyss is a deep canyon in the western Pacific Ocean, located 500 km southwest of Guam. It is named after the British survey ship, whose crew members were the first to measure this deepest trench on Earth in 1875.