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"the deep sea contains treasures that are far from being recognized and developed on the earth, but to obtain these treasures, we must master key technologies in deep sea entry, deep sea exploration, and deep sea development." manned deep diving is the first step to achieve "deep sea an important means of entry. how difficult is it to enter the deep sea? according to incomplete statistics, there are about 700 people in the world who have entered space, 12 people have landed on the moon, and only about 40 people have dived to the bottom of the sea 10,000 meters away.

today, what is displayed in the studio is a 1:72 model of my country's third generation manned submersible. judging from the order of birth:

• the first one is"jiaolong", in 2012, its deep dive successfullybreaking through 7062 meters, this depth covers 99.8% of the world’s oceans;

• the second one is"deep sea warrior", successfully dived in 20174534 meters, although it does not dive as deep as the "jiaolong", it focuses on china's technological independence, and its localization rate exceeds95%。

• channel 3"struggle", dive into in 202010909 meters。

the successful submersible sea trials of these three manned submersibles were conducted in 2012, 2017, and 2020 respectively. from an interval of 5 years to an interval of 3 years, you can already feel the pace of my country's deep-sea exploration in just this year. keep accelerating. so,how have generations of scientific and technological workers in our country overcome the huge difficulty of the 10,000-meter deep sea?

at shanghai jiao tong university, the reporter saw the test model of the 7103 deep-submersible lifeboat, the first manned submersible developed by my country. this lifeboat can carry out collective rescue operations for the crew of a wrecked submarine in the ocean with a water depth of 600 meters. zhu jimao, an 87-year-old professor at shanghai jiao tong university, is the chief designer.

zhu jimao, a professor at the school of marine, marine and architectural engineering at shanghai jiao tong university: at that time, our submarines were all 300 meters long. i set the depth of our submersible at 600 meters. it was very difficult. we had to develop it all over again starting from the materials of the project.

starting from a screw, there are a total of 48 major pieces of equipment. zhu jimao has led the team and has been working for 16 years. each experiment often lasts several months. the most difficult task, the jointing of the sealing rings, took half a year just to change the plan. no one dared to dive into the first underwater high-pressure sea test, so zhu jimao dived and tested it himself.

zhu jimao, a professor at the school of marine, marine and architectural engineering at shanghai jiao tong university: at that time, only the united states had done this. japan had not succeeded. we succeeded in connecting. we just think that if foreigners can do it, we will definitely be able to do it.

in 1987, the 7103 deep-submersible lifeboat was finally successfully developed, and zhu jimao won the first prize of the national science and technology progress award.

the ocean accounts for 71% of the earth's surface, of which the deep-sea area with a depth of more than 2,000 meters accounts for 84% of the entire ocean area. the baton of manned deep diving has been handed over to the 702nd research institute of china state shipbuilding corporation in wuxi.

cctv reporter zhou peipei: on my left is a one-to-one model of my country's three generations of manned deep-diving equipment, the "jiaolong", the "deep sea warrior" and the "struggle", breaking through from the "jiaolong" dive 7,000 meters, to the "struggle" diving into the deep sea of ​​10,000 meters,these three manned submersibles can be said to have witnessed the glorious history of my country's manned deep diving career from scratch to the deepest parts of the world's oceans.

after ten years of demonstration, in 2002, the major project of the national 863 program was finally approved, and the self-design and independent integrated development of the "jiaolong" manned submersible was launched. the target sea depth was 7,000 meters. the 702 research institute, as the chief designer unit, was responsible for the deep sea launch an extreme challenge.

ye cong, a researcher at the china shipbuilding science research center: at that time, the maximum operating depth of submersibles in the world was 6,500 meters, so when we established the project, we had the ambition to break the record, so we set the target at 7,000 meters and aimed at the world. first. before the "jiaolong", our country's manned deep diving record did not exceed 600 meters, so this is a huge leap.

from less than 600 meters to 7,000 meters, diving to a new depth also brings unprecedented difficulty, and everything must be started from scratch. ye cong, who has just worked for two years after graduating from university, serves as the chief designer of one of the 11 subsystems of the "jiaolong".

ye cong, a researcher at the china shipbuilding science research center: the most critical component is the front spherical cabin, which can provide a safe working environment for three people. its sealing and materials are very critical issues, because at 7,000 meters the depth is equivalent to a weight of 7,000 tons per square meter. to put it simply, an area as large as a porthole has to withstand the stampede of 1,000 elephants at the same time.

facing large depths, it must be resistant to both pressure and corrosion, and its service life must reach 30 years. after using brand-new titanium alloy materials and overcoming major technical problems such as automatic navigation and hovering positioning, high-speed hydroacoustic communications, and oil-filled silver-zinc battery capacity, the "jiaolong" conducted its first sea test in 2009.

1000 meters, 3000 meters, 5000 meters, 7000 meters...in 2012, the "jiaolong"'s maximum diving depth reached 7,062 meters, and its working range can cover 99.8% of the world's ocean areas.

ye cong, a researcher at the china shipbuilding science research center: it took us four years to dive from the surface to 7,000 meters on the "jiaolong", and it took us more than 40 days to dive from the surface to 4,500 meters on the "deep sea warrior" ,when we arrived at the "struggle", we dived more than 10,000 meters in the deepest part of the earth's ocean eight times in a row. this frequency and rhythm also represent that our manned deep diving technology is becoming more and more mature and advanced.

"jiaolong" china's manned deep diveusein 10 years, we have completed the journey that our foreign counterparts took nearly 60 years to complete.a young team has been cultivated and core technologies have been accumulated. in 2017, china's second deep-sea manned submersible, the "deep sea warrior", successfully tested in the south china sea, with an operating capacity of 4,500 meters underwater. more importantly, the localization rate exceeded 95%.

my country's all-ocean deep manned submersible "struggle" project has been established, and the research and development team is still composed of the "jiaolong" team. ye cong also grew up as the chief designer of the "struggle" with the intensive large-scale projects, teaming up with more than 30 scientific research institutes and universities, including the institute of deep sea science and engineering of the chinese academy of sciences, more than 60 companies, and nearly a thousand scientific researchers conduct research on key core technologies.

ye cong, a researcher at the china shipbuilding science research center: the "struggle" is basically 1.5 times the size of the "jiaolong". a 10,000-meter manned cabin of this size is no longer the same type.in order to build this submersible, a new material was specially invented and the world's first welding process was used.

on november 10, 2020, the "struggle" successfully sank to the bottom of 10,909 meters in the mariana trench, setting a new record for china's manned deep dive.

from being “able to build” to leading the world, my country’s pace of innovative breakthroughs in manned deep diving has never stopped. at present, the scientific research team is carrying out new technological upgrades on manned submersibles and developing new manned submersibles with fully transparent shells, which will be used in underwater archeology and exploration in the future.

ye cong, a researcher at the china shipbuilding science research center: china now accounts for more than half of the world's manned deep-sea diving missions each year. large-depth deep-sea manned submersibles are a landmark achievement of a large and powerful ocean country. we believe that with the efforts of each generation, we can build a strong country and realize the great rejuvenation of the nation.

(cctv reporter shuai junquan, zhou peipei and li xiao)

(cctv news client)