China’s largest oceanographic research vessel dubbed the “Sun Yat-sen University,” was launched at Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai on Friday, about 92 years after China’s first scientific expedition to the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea.
Construction of the research vessel began on October 28, 2019. With a length of 114.3 meters, a width of 19.4 meters, and a draft of 9.3 meters, the ship has a range of 15,000 nautical miles.
The research vessel with a displacement of 6,900 tons is capable of global navigation in unlimited navigation areas and can carry more than a dozen mobile container laboratories. It is capable of completing various kinds of scientific research from the seabed to the sky of 10,000 meters, including ocean, atmosphere, geophysics and the ecological environment.
The ship also has a helicopter landing platform, which is convenient for scientific researchers and materials transport, and it can also be used as a drone landing platform, which could expand the scope of scientific research observation. In the future, a 760-square-meter stationary laboratory will be built on the ship.
