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Chinese scientists have launched a rocket from an unmanned submarine for the first time in history.

The rocket was a rocketsonde - a rocket designed to perform weather observations - and was launched by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Hongbin Chen, who led the study, said: “Launched from a long-duration unmanned semi-submersible vehicle, with strong mobility and large coverage of the sea area, rocketsonde (meteorological rockets that are capable of launching weather instruments up to 8,000 meters into the atmosphere) can be used under severe sea conditions and will be more economical and applicable in the future.”

The researchers decided to launch from the semi-submersible vehicle to improve the accuracy of the rocket.

(Image: AFP)

Dr Juni Li, co-author of the study, explained: “The unmanned semi-submersible vehicle is an ideal platform for marine meteorological environmental monitoring, and the atmospheric profile information provided by rocketsonde launched from this platform can improve the accuracy of numerical weather forecasts at sea and in coastal zones.”

The team now plans to use unmanned semi-submersible vehicles to provide a network of observations at sea to extend weather data over the ocean.

This can help to predict when and where dangerous weather phenomenons, including typhoons and hurricanes, are going to happen.