China's domestically-produced icebreaker "Xuelong 2" to be completed in 2019

China's first domestically produced icebreaker "Xuelong 2" is expected to be completed in 2019. It will help the current "Xuelong" in polar scientific expeditions, reported stdaily.com.

An illustration shows ice breaker "Xuelong 2". [Photo: Polar Research Institute of China]

Though the basic design was completed by foreign companies, Chinese research centers and ship companies made the detailed design, construction design and offered the ship-building technology, said Wang Jianzhong, deputy chief engineer of the vessel.

Xuelong 2 can break ice at both bow and stern.

The construction of Xuelong 2 started last year and reached a key stage this year. A shipborne helicopter was purchased for the vessel.

Photo shows the Chinese research vessel and icebreaker Xuelong in Shanghai, east China, July 20, 2017. [Photo: Xinhua]

Xuelong, China's first icebreaker, was built in Ukraine and put into service in 1994.

China first sent an expedition team to the Antarctic in 1984. Since then, the country has established four scientific research stations in the Antarctic.