Show off our national treasure 5丨The full-sea-depth manned submersible "Struggler"

On October 21, 2021, the National "13th Five-Year Plan" Science and Technology Innovation Achievement Exhibition opened its doors to the Beijing Exhibition Hall. Many people saw that there were three eye-catching "big guys" on the left side of the main entrance of the exhibition hall: "Jiaolong", "Deep Sea Warrior" and "Struggler". It was these three that witnessed China's deep-sea technology strength from following, to running side by side, and now leading the world!

The world-leading leap took place on November 10, 2020. On that day, at around 4:50 a.m. Beijing time, on the surface of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, China's first 10,000-meter-class manned submersible, the "Struggler", was hoisted from the mother ship into the deep blue sea and began to reach a depth of 10,000 meters.

"Fendouzhe" full-sea-depth manned submersible. Photo courtesy of the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

**The Mariana Trench, known as the "fourth pole" of the earth, has only three records of human "exploring the bottom" in history. **In 1962, two Americans took the "Trieste" submersible to dive here; in 2012, Cameron, the director of "Titanic", drove the single-person submarine "Deepsea Challenger" to explore the abyss. In 2019, American explorer Vescovo and two others also reached the depths of the trench on the "Deep Diving Limiting Factor". However, most of them are explorers, diving alone or in pairs, and need to surface urgently after a short stay.

The "Fendouzhe" is a work and scientific research vehicle. It can carry three people to dive to the bottom of the sea 10,000 meters deep. It can cruise autonomously and conduct scientific surveys such as biological minerals and geophysics. It has a large space, long time, and many crew members, and its difficulty is far greater than that of similar deep-sea submersibles.

That day, the "Fendouzhe" dived like a dragon into the sea: 1000m, 3000m, 5000m, 7000m... On the large screen showing the depth, the "current depth" kept getting longer and longer.

Ten thousand meters! "Wow——" The sea trial team members gathered in front of the big screen burst into warm applause.

Afterwards, the depth numbers continued to jump: 10001, 10003, 10100, until 10909, when the "Fendouzhe" successfully reached the bottom of the sea, once again setting a record for China's manned deep-sea diving.

Image from the Ministry of Science and Technology

"The three of us are in good condition now, and we are conducting a functional test of the manipulator. The scene here is wonderful..." This is the reply from the three divers of the "Fendouzhe". This is the voice of the Chinese from the abyss of ten thousand meters!

**This is indeed a Chinese sea trial that will go down in history. **Not only did the "Struggler" dive successfully, but it also achieved the world's first 4K TV signal live broadcast at the bottom of the 10,000-meter ocean. What the United States, France, Japan, Russia, etc. have not done, we Chinese have done!

**The deep sea is full of mystery. Humans currently know less about the deep sea than the moon and Mars. **According to international rules, the ocean below 1,000 meters is called the deep sea, and below 6,000 meters is called the abyss. Every 10 meters you dive into the ocean, the pressure will increase by 1 atmosphere; if you dive 10,000 meters into the seabed, that is 1,000 atmospheres of pressure, which is equivalent to putting a heavy truck on a fingernail-sized area.

For this reason, exploring the deep sea and the abyss is an extremely difficult scientific expedition, involving a series of technologies such as design, materials, sealing, technology, communication, safety, integration, and testing. Each of them is an extreme technology and must be highly safe and reliable.

** Chasing the deep blue has always been the dream of Chinese researchers. ** In 2016, the Ministry of Science and Technology launched the overall design, integration and sea trial project of the "Full Ocean Depth Manned Submersible", and Chinese researchers are ready to head to the depths of the ocean.

**This was a brave march and an earth-shaking arrival. **People will never forget the tears in the scientists' eyes at the moment of success. Ye Cong, chief designer of the "Struggler" and chief commander of the sea trial, was filled with emotion: "I think the story of China's deep-sea diving cannot be told in these five years, but should be told in twenty years or even longer. my country has gone from having no deep-sea equipment to having deep-sea equipment, from having no people to having people, and from simple to complex operations. This was carried out by the older generation of scientists. We must remember traditions and be innovative, so where the "Struggler" has arrived is far from the end. It should be said that we have just opened a crack in the ocean..."

Producer: Zhang Ning, Liao Hui

Planning: Li Fangzhou and Li Yimeng

Voiceover: Zhang Yuexin

Editing: Dong Dazheng

Produced by: Guangming Online News Center

Interview: Guangming Daily Omnimedia Reporter Yuan Yufei

Editor: Yue Pei Editor: Li Jiaqi

Original title: "Exploring the Earth's "Fourth Pole": The full-sea-depth manned submersible "Struggler""

Source: Guangming Daily (November 18, 2021, p. 01)