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Kaikō (海溝, "Ocean Trench") was a deep-sea remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) built by JAMSTEC, a Japanese company. It sampled bacteria from the ocean floor of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest location in the world. On 2 March 1996, Kaikō reached a depth of 10,897 m, marking the deepest dive for an unmanned submersible on record. At the time, the Bathyscaphe Trieste held the record for deepest dive, made in 1960. Kaikō was lost during Typhoon Chan-Hom in May 2003, when a secondary cable connecting it to the surface broke.

External links

• JAMSTEC's Kaikō page
• http://www.tierramerica.net
• http://www.smarterscience.net