Deep-sea robot sets new underwater gliding depth record

China’s domestic underwater glider reached a depth of 6,329 meters during a mission in the Mariana Trench, breaking the previous record of 6,000 meters held by a U.S. vessel, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Codenamed Haiyi, which means sea wings in Chinese, the underwater glider was developed by the Shenyang Institute of Automation under CAS, and is used to monitor the deep-sea environment in vast areas.

The Haiyi, carried by deep-sea submersible mother ship Tansuo-1, dived down 12 times and traveled over 130 kilometers during its four-day mission, collecting high-resolution data for scientific research.