The newest Chinese icebreaker, Xuelong-2, left Shanghai on Monday for its second expedition to the North Pole, which will be China’s 12th in a row. This was reported by the news resource Pengpai.
Kyiv. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – July 12, 2021 – International News
The expedition will last until the second half of September. During this time, the ship has to cover about 15 thousand nautical miles and perform a number of research tasks. These include work and research on climate change, environmental protection in the Arctic, and sample collection in the region.
The previous Xuelong-2 icebreaker expedition to the North Pole, which lasted 75 days, ended in September 2020. Then, for the first time, Chinese specialists managed to collect samples of sedimentary rocks under ice at a depth of 18.65 meters in the Arctic Ocean.
Launched in September 2018, the vessel with a displacement of more than 13.9 thousand tons has a length of 122.5 meters, a width of 22.3 meters, and a maximum draft of 7.85 meters. The icebreaker is capable of carrying up to 4.5 thousand tons of cargo on board, and the maximum speed, according to the technical characteristics, is about 15 knots.
The vessel is designed in such a way that it can pierce ice up to 1.5 meters thick both aft and bow, moving at a speed of 2-3 knots. Icebreaker has a range of up to 20 thousand nautical miles and is able to stay at sea autonomously for 60 days.
Earlier, this icebreaker successfully carried out two expeditions to the South Pole, the last of which ended in May this year.
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Source: Ukrgate
