Civilian exploration may be the official mission of a Chinese deep-sea research ship that sailed clockwise around Australia over the past week and is now loitering west of the continent. But maybe it’s also attending to naval duties. These could have included laying or servicing seabed acoustic sensors and possibly detailed mapping of parts of the ocean floor to support future submarine operations. Open-source tracking data enables such educated guesses to be made, without discounting the possibilities of economic and scientific data-gathering. The ship, Tansuo Yi Hao (Exploration 1) took a similar route around Australia in January 2023, investigating 1100km of the Diamantina Trench over 34 days. China’s state media later said this was the first time the bottom of the trench had been reached. The ship carries a crewed submersible, the Fendouzhe (Striver), capable of long-duration forays to the seabed in depths exceeding 10,000 metres.
Seabed sensors and mapping: what China’s survey ship could be up to | The Strategist
