GUANGZHOU - Scientific expedition vessel "Xiangyanghong 10" on Friday officially joined China's oceanic research team.

Construction of the 4,500-tonne ship took from June 2012 to this January and was implemented by the Second Institute of Oceanography under the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) and the Zhejiang Taihe Shipping Co., Ltd..

This is the first scientific expedition vessel jointly built by a government-sponsored institution and a private company, said an SOA statement.

With a maximum sailing distance of 12,000 nautical miles without refueling, the ship is named after the old "Xiangyanghong 10" which carried Chinese researchers in the country's first Antarctic expedition in 1984.

According to the statement, the new ship is capable of conducting oceanic and deep sea observation, exploration, sampling and analysis, and it will serve as a mobile lab and experimentation platform.