The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has placed an in situ scientific experiment station on the seafloor that will allow Chinese researchers to conduct long-term uncrewed scientific research in the deep sea.
Researchers aboard the research vessel Tansuo-2 (Exploration 2), carrying the crewed diver Shenhai Yongshi (Deep Sea Warrior), deployed the station during their expedition. CAS announced that the ship had returned to Sanya, in southern China's Hainan Province.
The on-site scientific experiment station is a new deep-sea system proposed by China in recent years. It takes a deep-sea base station as its hub, can carry a variety of uncrewed divers, and access chemical/biological laboratories and other platforms to perform a range of on-site experiments and exploration.
Researcher Chen Jun, from the CAS-affiliated Institute of Deep Sea Science and Engineering, said traditional marine research has taken samples from the seafloor and had them tested in land laboratories. Chen noted that deep-sea in situ testing can prevent sample data from being damaged or lost due to environmental changes.
According to CAS, the station will operate autonomously on the seafloor and will be able to monitor and manage it. All data will be transmitted regularly to the onshore control center via the deep-sea glider, and researchers will also be able to remotely control the onsite scientific experiment station.
The station's power system can store 1.000 kilowatt-hours of electricity and support the station's continuous operation on the seafloor for more than half a year. In this mission, the crewed submarine "Deep Sea Warrior" docked with the base station with an on-site laboratory and performed a series of tests of the station, such as wireless communication and mode switching. In future missions, the station will be connected to more intelligent, uncrewed experiments, detection and information transmission systems.
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