ABSTRACT

Full Ocean depth remotely operated vehicle Kaiko, owned by Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (hereafter JAMSTEC), had lost own vehicle during the research diving by the accident of snapping the secondary cable in late May 2003. JAMSTEC and other Japanese governmental organizations searched the missed vehicle as well as we could. However, it has been missing ever since. The search activities, which many Japanese organizations cooperated and carried out, are summarized in this subject.

INTRODUCTION FOR THE ROV KAIKO

10,000m class ROV Kaiko was completed in 1995, for investigation the deepest seafloor which geographical feature is complicated and dangerous where no other manned submersibles could reach nor approach. Kaiko had already achieved 296 dives included the deepest dive in the Challenger Deep of Mariana Trench. (figure 1 shown in paper) The mainly fruitful dives are the first discovery of the hydrothermal vent area in the Indian Ocean on 2000, located a Japanese rocket H2 main engine that went down over the Pacific in 1999 and helped for the recovery operation of the sunken Japanese training ship EHIME-MARU at Hawaii in 2002. ROV Kaiko had achieved not only many scientific results but also played a vital role in solving important incident for Japan. (figure 2 shown in paper) ROV Kaiko was structured two mainly underwater sections and onboard equipment. The underwater sections were a launcher, a vehicle and their connected cables. The launcher and the vehicle are usually combined from surface to near seafloor, and at about 100m altitudes the vehicle is launched from the launcher and lands on a seafloor alone. We called the cable between support vessel and the launcher as a primary cable, the cable between the launcher and the vehicle as a secondary cable.

This content is only available via PDF.
You can access this article if you purchase or spend a download.