China's manned submersible starts new expedition

SANYA - China's science ship Tansuo-1 loaded with the manned submersible Shenhai Yongshi, or "deep-sea warrior," set sail Tuesday for the first scientific expedition this year.

The ship departed at 9 am from the port of Nanshan in the city of Sanya, southern China's Hainan province, for the missions of ocean resource exploration, geochemistry research and marine organism collection.

The Shenhai Yongshi manned submersible was developed by the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation and delivered to the institute of deep-sea science and engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2017. It is able to dive underwater to a depth of 4,500 meters.

It is the second deep-sea manned submersible of China. The first one, Jiaolong, set a world record by diving to a depth of 7,062 meters during tests in the Mariana Trench in 2012.