<\/p>\n
China is further expanding its icebreaker fleet with a new polar class vessel set to join service in the second quarter of 2024. Last week, China revealed the designs of its next-generation research vessel Ji Di, <\/em>currently under construction at Guangzhou Shipyard International.<\/p>\n The vessel measures 89 meters long with a width of 17.8 meters, with displacement of 5,600 tonnes. It has capacity for 60 crew members and a range of 26,000 kilometers, with at-sea endurance of up to 80 days. <\/p>\n Additionally, the vessel will be equipped to carry drones and underwater autonomous robots for deep polar seabed exploration.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Construction of Ji Di <\/em>at Guangzhou Shipyard is happening concurrently with that of another Polar Class 4 icebreaking research vessel, which is tentatively named Tan Suo San Hao<\/em>. Its construction began in June and is slightly bigger than Ji Di <\/em>with a length of 103 meters and a displacement of about 9,200 tons. The vessel will have enough capacity for 80 crew members.<\/p>\n Ji Di <\/em>is expected to be delivered in 2025, bringing the total number of Chinese research icebreakers to four. The first two icebreakers include Xuelong 1 <\/em>and Xuelong 2,<\/em> which China is currently using for missions to replenish supplies in its seven stations in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.<\/p>\n The expansion of China’s icebreaking fleet has empowered the country to make year-round scientific expeditions to the geopolitically-important polar regions. China has conducted 40 scientific expeditions in the Antarctic since 1984 and another 12 in the Arctic since 1999. This translates to a wealth of scientific and environmental data on these regions, positioning China as a rising power in the Earth’s frozen frontiers.<\/p>\n maritime-executive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" China is further expanding its icebreaker fleet with a new polar class vessel set to join service in the second quarter of 2024. Last week, China revealed the designs of its next-generation research vessel Ji Di, currently under construction at Guangzhou Shipyard International. The vessel measures 89 meters long with a width of 17.8 meters, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[95,2002,1135,1685,1388,2904],"class_list":["post-36754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news","tag-china","tag-fourth","tag-icebreaker","tag-research","tag-unveils","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/36755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}