Japanese 6,500M Deep Manned Research Submersible Project

JAMSTEC (Japan Marine Science and Technology Center) is now planning to develop a 6,500m deep manned research submersible. The Japanese Government approved a budget for the construction of the submersible, and JAMSTEC is now working on preliminary design so as to complete the construction on FY1989. Rough characteristics of the vehicle have been decided following to the operational experiences on "SHINKAI 2000", and also by accepting various requirements from various researchers and by applying many of the advanced technologies. In this paper, several features of this submersible system are presented.