DeepFlight Challenger is a one-person submersible built with the intention of reaching the Challenger Deep, utilizing DeepFlight technology from Hawkes Ocean Technologies. The submersible is owned by Virgin Oceanic.
The submersible was designed by Graham Hawkes and Hawkes Ocean Technologies (HOT). It was originally ordered by Steve Fossett for an attempt on the Challenger Deep, to become the first solo dive there.[1][2] Planning for the submersible started in 2000.[3] It was put on the ordersheet in 2005, with a depth capability of 11,000 metres (37,000 ft).[3][4] The craft was named Challenger by Fossett after the Challenger Deep.[4] At the time of the order, this would have doubled the depth that a single-place sub would be capable of going.[4] It was to have been a "secret project" of Fossett's to be the first to solo the Challenger Deep, and was secret at the time of his death in 2007.[3][5] The project was put on hold when Fossett died, and locked up in a warehouse at Hawkes Ocean Technologies, by the then owners, Fossett's estate,[2] but was later revived when Chris Welsh of Deep Sub LLC bought the unfinished sub and restarted the program in 2010. Welsh had purchased the sub and the yacht Cheyenne from the Fossett estate for around $1 million. Virgin Oceanic came in as sponsors a year later in 2011.[6][7][8] At the time of Fossett's death, the sub had been almost finished,[2][9] only four weeks from dive tests[10] and delivery.[11] This sub is the first deep-diving sub to be constructed with a pressure hull (central tube portion) of carbon fibre composite, built by Spencer Composites for HOT. Its carbon fiber design would later influence the tube for the sub Titan,[12] which imploded due to the carbon fiber hull failing.[13]
The submersible uses composite technology to create a lightweight sub with great depth capabilities. The viewdome is made from quartz, while the rest of the pressure hull uses carbon/epoxy composites. The interface between dome and hull is by bonded titanium rings. The sub has a 24-hour endurance, 3 knots (5.6 km/h) bottom speed, and 110 m/min (350 ft/min) dive rate.[1][10][14] The sub uses syntactic foam for buoyancy, and is positively buoyant when no ballast is attached. The submersible does not have a temperature control system for the cabin, so interior temperature eventually falls to water temperature.[3][15] The sub weighs 3,600 kilograms (8,000 lb), and does not need a dedicated mothership.[2][4] It has a 15-nautical-mile (28 km) range, 6 knots (11 km/h) maximum speed, and 3-axis freedom of motion. It uses LED lighting instead of arc lights, and has laser "feeler" beams to aid navigation.[4] The sub can dive to the bottom of the ocean and get back to the surface in 5 hours.[16] The design drew from DeepFlight II, another Hawkes Ocean Technologies full depth submersible.[17] The pressure hull is rated to withstand 140 MPa (20,000 psi) (more than the 110 MPa (16,000 psi) at the bottom of the Mariana Trench).[2] The sub is smaller than James Cameron's Deepsea Challenger.[18] Challenger represents the third generation of DeepFlight technology, one generation behind the DeepFlight Super Falcon.[19]
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See also: Virgin Oceanic § Five Dives project |
Richard Branson and Chris Welsh of Virgin Oceanic planned on using DeepFlight Challenger to reach the deepest point of each of the world's five oceans, the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean (11,034 m or 36,201 ft), the Puerto Rico Trench of the Atlantic Ocean (8,605 m or 28,232 ft), the Diamantina Trench of the Indian Ocean (8,047 m or 26,401 ft), South Sandwich Trench of the Southern Ocean (7,235 m or 23,737 ft), and Molloy Deep of the Arctic Ocean (5,608 m or 18,399 ft).[10][21][22] The Cheyenne yacht was to have been used as the mothership for the dive efforts.[23]
It was planned that Branson would pilot the sub to the Puerto Rico Trench, while Chris Welsh would pilot it for the Mariana Trench dive.[21] Virgin Oceanic had hoped to be the first team to solo to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and first team to return to the Challenger Deep since the Bathyscaphe Trieste, the first submersible to dive to the Challenger Deep. However, James Cameron's Deepsea Challenge project beat them to it in March 2012.[18] There has been an undeclared race on to return to the Challenger Deep between four teams, Cameron's, Virgin Oceanic's, Google-Schmidt/DOER's, and Triton submersibles'.[24] The attempt on Challenger Deep had been announced in April 2011.[19]
Based on testing at high pressure, the DeepFlight Challenger was determined to be suitable only for a single dive, not the repeated uses that had been planned as part of Virgin Oceanic service. As such, in 2014, Virgin Oceanic scrapped plans for the five dives project using the DeepFlight Challenger, as originally conceived, putting plans on hold until more suitable technologies are developed.[25]
As of February 2012, several other vehicles are under development to reach the same depths. The groups developing them include:[26]