China’s Jiaolong Submersible Completes 475 Dives After Upgrades

What changed

China’s Jiaolong crewed submersible has completed 475 dives as of early November 2026 and is now conducting its first survey in the South Pacific. The upgraded vessel, carried by the Deep Sea No. 1, is operating on the second leg of China Ocean 100.

The changes are substantial:

• Batteries, thrusters and cameras have been upgraded.
• Key components have been replaced with domestically produced versions.
• Jiaolong can now complete two dives in a day.
• Its biological-recognition system can help identify deep-sea organisms.
• It has passed a 7,000-metre-class sea trial in the Philippine Basin.

Why it matters

The useful change is not simply that Jiaolong has reached another milestone. It is that China is trying to make deep-ocean research more repeatable. Faster charging and steadier movement mean more time spent observing, sampling and returning safely, rather than waiting between dives or fighting the vehicle’s own limitations.

Jiaolong is designed to reach 7,000 metres. Across the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Arctic oceans, as well as the South China Sea, it has carried out close-range observations and collected rocks, sediment, seawater and deep-sea organisms. That work has produced new species findings and data on hydrothermal activity, cold-seep ecosystems, cobalt-rich crusts and polymetallic nodules.

The intelligent recognition module adds another layer. It can help process what the submersible sees while it is underwater, giving researchers a faster way to identify organisms during a dive. The current South Pacific mission will show how well the upgraded system performs in sustained fieldwork, although the mission’s scientific results and the scale of any performance gains have not yet been quantified.

The larger point is capability. A deep-sea vehicle becomes more valuable when it can dive more often, cover difficult terrain steadily and turn observations into usable scientific data. Jiaolong’s 475th dive marks accumulated experience; the South Pacific deployment tests whether its second-generation upgrades can convert that experience into a more dependable research routine.