The Tansuo-1, a Chinese deep-sea submersible mother ship, returned to her home port in Sanya, Hainan province at 8:00 am, on August 12, after conducting deep-sea scientific explorations in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. The ship, which handles a manned submersible that can reach a depth of 4,500 meters, gets its support from Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Hainan government as priority projects. It uses a Chinese-developed Haidou ARV (autonomous and remotely operated vehicle) that can dive to 11,000 meters, as well as Tianya and Haijiao deep-sea landing crafts, an ocean floor seismometer, an underwater glider, and other high-tech hardware.

This voyage was the first time China has explored areas at a depth of 10,000 meters, indicating that China has entered a new era in the field of marine science and technology.