Virgin Group founder Richard Branson says his DeepFlight Challenger submersible is capable of diving to 35,000 feet and will explore the deepest parts of the seas beginning this year.

Could Richard Branson soon replicate the exploits of Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh? The Virgin Group founder on Tuesday said he and others will soon be diving to the deepest depths of the sea in an 18-foot submersible capable of descents to more than 35,000 feet, according to media reports.

If he pulls off an ambitious two-year plan called Virgin Oceanic, the billionaire adventurer and his team could be taking the DeepFlight Challenger submersible built by Hawkes Ocean Technologies on a trip to the 36,000-foot depths of the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench later this year, Branson said at a press conference.

That's a feat previously only accomplished by Piccard and Walsh  all the way back in 1960, when the pair took Piccard's Trieste bathyscaphe to a depth of approximately 35,800 feet on their Challenger Deep mission. No one has made an attempt to send a manned submersible that deep since.

"There is just so much to explore, so much to discover," Branson said, according to Reuters. "We are going to obviously come across some fascinating creatures and learn some fascinating things that will hopefully be useful for mankind."

Branson's Virgin Oceanic project plans for five dives over the next two years, he said. The first will be the Mariana Trench dive, which Branson himself will not pilot. That's followed by a trip to the Atlantic Ocean's Puerto Rico Trench with Branson at the helm of the DeepFlight Challenger.

Other planned dives include visits to the Arctic Ocean's Molloy Deep, the Sandwich Trench in the Southern Ocean and the Indian Ocean's Diamantina. The five dives will cost less than $10 million to pull off, Branson said.

Branson said he hoped Virgin Oceanic would someday offer deep sea dives to the general public, much as he plans for his ongoing Virgin Galactic project to take passengers on suborbital flights at a per-flight price of $200,000 a customer.

Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft is set for testing this year and commercial operations could begin in 2012.