On November 17, the Mengxiang (Dream), an ocean drilling vessel independently designed and built by China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), officially entered service.
The Mengxiang was assembled and built by Huangpu Wenchong and designed by the 708 Research Institute. The 701 Research Institute took part in design support and developed and supplied the integrated information system and intelligent ship system. The 711 Research Institute provided the complete electric propulsion system, including the main generator sets, thruster systems and DP3 power system, and served as the consulting body and responsible technical unit for vibration and noise control. The 704 Research Institute supplied six product types across two major categories, including the ship-wide closed-loop electric propulsion system, the DP3 power system and ship-wide monitoring, core and provisions refrigeration, air cooling and ventilation, remote valve control and remote tank level measurement systems. The 710 Research Institute independently designed and built a fully domestically produced paleomagnetic shielding laboratory.
The vessel is fitted with a DP-3 dynamic positioning system based on an energy-storage closed-loop power grid. It can operate normally in sea state 6, survive safely in a category 16 super typhoon, and has unrestricted global operating capability.
Following the design and construction concept of small tonnage, multiple functions and modularization, the Mengxiang broke through more than 50 core key technologies in 10 categories. It solved the difficult problem of integrating ocean scientific drilling, deep-sea oil and gas exploration, and natural gas hydrate exploration and trial production functions in a single vessel, achieving a substantial improvement in overall performance and effective control of operating costs, with fully independent intellectual property rights.
The vessel is equipped with a hydraulic drilling rig capable of both oil and gas exploration and core drilling, integrating four operating modes and three coring methods, with fully automated operations from core collection through transfer to storage; its deep-sea hard-rock coring efficiency is 40% higher. Its large, full-featured and well-organized onboard laboratories can support real-time research needs across all marine disciplines, including basic geology, paleomagnetism, inorganic geochemistry, organic geochemistry, microbiology, marine science, natural gas hydrates, geophysics and drilling technology. The vessel is the first to use a latest-generation 30 megawatt closed-loop ring power grid with battery energy storage, cutting the ship’s overall energy consumption by 15%. Its integrated research vessel information system, the ship’s brain, aggregates and analyzes data from more than 20,000 monitoring points in real time, enabling intelligent operations monitoring, intelligent experiment coordination, intelligent health support and intelligent ship-shore integration.
The participating organizations, led by CSSC, used the project to drive science and technology innovation, achieving major breakthroughs in the marine science and technology field and turning a major national asset and super project from blueprint into reality.
