Ye Cong’s Chief Submariner

On July 25, 2011, Ye Cong drove my country's first self-developed deep-sea submersible "Jiaolong" to the 5,000-meter depth mark for the first time. The location of the sea trial was in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, which is a very flat seabed.

In order not to worry his family, Ye Cong sends an email to his family every time before performing a task. Before driving the "Jiaolong" for a 5,000-meter deep dive, Ye Cong sent an email to his parents, informing them that the "Jiaolong" would make its second dive at 1:30 a.m. on July 26, Beijing time. test. At 2:30 in the morning, news came from CCTV: The "Jiaolong" synchronization clock had malfunctioned and the dive time would be delayed. Father Ye Daqun persuaded his wife to rest together.

The risk of manned deep diving is not small. At more than 5,000 meters of water, each square meter of the boat body has to bear 5 million kilograms of water pressure. During a test dive, a sudden malfunction occurred. The "Jiaolong" lost contact with the mother ship and did not emerge from the water as scheduled. The parents, who had not received the email stating that their son was safe, were so nervous that they stayed up all night and sent three emails in a row. It was not until Ye Cong came out of the water safely to reply to the email that the parents felt relieved.

At the front end of the "Jiaolong", there are three observation windows, which are the most convenient "eyes" for submariners to observe the seabed. The submersible can observe the seabed environment within 20 meters ahead under strong light illumination.

Close to the bottom of the sea, Ye Cong started to get busy. Ye Cong activated the hovering positioning function of the submersible and landed smoothly on the bottom of the sea. He carefully observed the surrounding environment, selected the operating location, and at the same time contacted the command on the sea surface. The robotic arm began to expand to take samples, and the pilots began to get busy. After staying at the bottom of the sea for 5 hours, Ye Cong and his companions happily had lunch. During the one hour and 40 minutes he spent returning to the surface, he listened to music for a while and chatted with his companions about his experience of diving.

During the dive of the "Jiaolong", Ye Cong was the submersible. His main job was to ensure the normal operation of the manned submersible, control the submersible to cruise and operate in designated sea areas, and was also responsible for navigation, Communications, photography, life support, fault repair and maintenance, medical first aid, etc.

Before diving, Ye Cong told his parents not to stay up late to watch the live broadcast, but Ye Daqun and his wife were worried about their son who was far away in the depths of the ocean, and they had been waiting in front of the TV since the night of the 25th.

At 6:12 in the morning, the phone at home suddenly rang. Uncle Ye Cong called his father Ye Daqun and said: "Ye Cong's dive was successful! Ye Cong's dive was successful!"

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Ye Daqun quickly turned on the TV and saw the scene of his son driving the "Jiaolong" into the 5,057-meter-deep sea. At 10:13 in the morning, when Ye Cong and others successfully walked out of the "Jiaolong", their parents felt relieved. At this time, the phone at home was ringing loudly, and neighbors and district leaders came to express their congratulations. CCTV News Network continuously broadcast news that my country has dived into the 5,000-meter-deep sea.

At 12:22 on July 26, 2011, Ye Daqun and Chang Yaojun finally received the safe email from their son. Ye Cong and two other submersibles successfully dived to a depth of 5,057 meters and returned to the mother ship "Xiang Yanghong 09". At 7 a.m. on June 15, 2012, three Chinese pilots took the "Jiaolong" manned submersible and began the first dive test of the 7,000-meter sea trial. The person responsible for the first dive mission was the submariner and chief pilot Ye Cong. According to the plan, the sea trial will include six dives and a depth of 7,000 meters.

On June 27, 2012, the "Jiaolong" reached a maximum diving depth of 7,062 meters during the fifth dive test of the 7,000-meter sea trial. This dive test started at 5:05 on the 27th, Beijing time, and the "Jiaolong" began filling with water and diving at 5:29. At 11:47, the submersible reached the seabed at a depth of 7,062 meters. The entire dive test lasted 695 minutes, and included marker placement, bathymetry and scanning, and three seawater samples, two sediment samples and one biological sample were retrieved from the seabed. At 16:40, the submersible driven by Ye Cong returned to the deck of the test mother ship. He immediately sent an email to his home to report to his parents and wife: the dive was successful and he returned smoothly.