Chinese submersible completes 7,000-meter dive

China's Jiaolong submersible begins its dive, June 24. (Photo/Xinhua)

Chinese oceanauts beat the country's dive record in a manned submersible by going further than 7,000 meters beneath the sea after a successful test dive in the Pacific Ocean Sunday morning.
The Jiaolong, the manned submersible named after a mythical sea dragon, succeeded in diving 7,015 meters below sea level at around 11am local time during its fourth dive into the Mariana Trench. The dive started at 7am local time on Sunday, amid heavy rain.
The three oceanauts — Ye Cong, Liu Kaizhou and Yang Bo — sent greetings from deep under the sea to the three astronauts who are expected to conduct a manual docking of China's Shenzhou-9 spacecraft with the orbiting Tiangong-1 lab module.
"We wish for a great success of the manual docking and brilliant achievements in China's manned space and manned deep-sea dive causes," they said.
The oceanauts had succeeded in reaching the depths of 6,671, 6,965 and 6,963 meters in their previous three dives from June 15 to 22, comfortably passing the record of 5,188 meters set last July.

Source :http://www.wantchinatimes.com