Photo:Guangzhou Daily 

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.

The vessel was released 92 years after China's first scientific expedition to the Xisha Islands. In May 1928, researchers from Guangzhou-based Sun Yat-sen University promoted and participated in the scientific research on Yongxing Island, the largest of the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea and the island that is located on the prefecture-level Sansha City of South China's Hainan Province.

In March this year, Chinese researchers from the Sun Yat-sen University aboard a manned submersible, first spotted a three-meter long whale at a depth of 1,600 meters in the South China Sea. There are also researchers using artificial intelligence to predict changes in the salinity of the surface in the South China Sea.

The research vessel will become China's leading marine scientific research platform in the future, actively serving as the strategy of maritime potestatem and the development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. It is also expected to become a marine scientific research platform and talent training base opening to the world.

The ship will undergo various debugging after it was launched. It will undergo sea trials at the end of 2020 and be put into service in the first half of 2021. Ship captains are being recruited.