China’s first home-built icebreaker named Snow Dragon 2

On thick ice: an artist’s impression of Xuelong 2

China’s first home-built icebreaker polar research vessel has been named Xuelong 2, or Snow Dragon 2, according to a report from Science and Technology Daily

The construction of the new icebreaker Xuelong (Snow Dragon) 2 , jointly designed by China State Shipbuilding Corporation and Finland-based Aker Arctic Technology, was launched by Jiangnan Shipyard (Group) in December.


The new vessel will be 122.5m long and be able to break through 1.5m-thick ice at a maximum speed of 3 knots, said the Polar Research Institute of China.


Xuelong 2 is scheduled to be completed in 2019, when it will team up with the country’s only other icebreaker, Xuelong, to form a polar research fleet conducting scientific research missions and supplying resources to polar regions.


Xuelong, the country’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