The new stage of construction of the Humaitá submarine will begin during a ceremony today, in Rio de Janeiro, which will be attended by the president, Jair Bolsonaro.

On October 11, President Jair Bolsonaro will participate in Rio, in the ceremony that will mark the beginning of a new stage in the construction of the Humaitá submarine. The vessel will be the second of four submersibles purchased from the DCNS shipyard and financed by the BNP Paribas bank, both French, in 2008.

Technicians and workers will begin to assemble the five parts of the vessel's hull, built separately, at the Navy's base shipyard, in Itaguaí, in the metropolitan region of Rio. The act will be symbolic. It will be necessary to connect thousands of cables of the internal systems.

A podium has already been set up for Bolsonaro in front of the submersible, model S-BR. The construction is part of the Submarine Development Program (Prosub).

The Brazilian justification for, in partnership with France, building the four conventional submarines and buying the hull of the future nuclear-powered submarine, is to defend national sovereignty.

After joining the parts, Humaitá will spend another year in the construction and improvement phase of its interior. Only in the second half of next year will it be launched at sea for the testing phase.

It is at this stage that the Riachuelo, the first submarine foreseen in Prosub, is at. The pioneer was launched at the end of last year, in a ceremony with then-President Michel Temer and Bolsonaro himself, who was about to take office as President.

The Navy plans to launch a submarine conventional per year. After Humaitá, it will be the turn of Tonelero and, after him, Angostura. They are expected to be released in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

“We have an extensive maritime area that we call the Blue Amazon, with 5,7 million square kilometers. It is very important to be able to guarantee our sovereignty and defend our wealth”, said Admiral Celso Mizutani Koga, the engineer responsible for the works.

After the four conventional ones, the construction of the nuclear-powered submarine will come. It will be named after Álvaro Alberto, a Brazilian admiral who pioneered research in the sector. Admiral Koga classified this future submersible as “the icing on the cake” for Prosub.

The technology chosen by the Navy is French, from Scorpéne submarines, which use diesel-electric engines. The knowledge transfer process is extensive.

In the atomic ship, the last of the contracted binational package, the participation of Naval Group's engineering is limited to non-nuclear parts.

The original design of the four conventional models underwent changes in favor of the comfort of the 31 regular crew and the range capacity.

The “Br Version”, an informal denomination, is about 10 meters longer than the catalog specification

• Petrobras is the XNUMXth largest polluting company in the world
• “Petrobras headquarters in Salvador, Bahia, was a temple of corruption,” said Castello Branco in the Chamber of Deputies