BENGALURU: After the historic lunar landing of Chandrayaan-3, India is now gearing up for its maiden manned deep sea exploration in a homemade world-class submersible. ‘Samudrayaan’, a three-member mission, is being planned for launch in late 2025 in ‘Matsya 6000’, which is being developed at the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai, NIOT Director GA Ramadass told TNIE.
Samudrayaan Mission is a project of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and is being implemented as part of the Rs 4,800-crore ‘Deep Ocean Mission’. NIOT is an autonomous society under the MoES. Earlier, Indian Ocean scientists have conducted deep sea explorations in international vehicles of the USA and France. Samudrayaan will be the first venture in a ‘Made in India’ submersible, making India the sixth country in the world after the US, Russia, France, Japan and China to deploy a manned submersible.
Before Samudrayaan, the NIOT has planned for a manned shallow sea exploration 500 metres inside the Bay of Bengal in a steel submersible, most likely in April 2024. The expedition will train Indian aquanauts for deep sea exploration. “’Matsya 6000’ is being developed as a unique, sphere-shaped submersible made of special grade titanium alloy, which is lightweight and much stronger than steel. The submersible will be tested and certified by DNV (world-class Norwegian classification society and a recognized adviser for the maritime industry) to go down 6000 metres inside the ocean,” he said. Titanium is lighter but stronger than steel, and enables the weight of deep-diving vehicles as low as possible. It requires minimum maintenance, has an extended lifecycle and incomparable anti-corrosive properties.
“Matsya will go down 6000 metres (6km) into the Indian Ocean for a duration of 12 hours, though it is being developed and will be tested for 96-hour endurance in case of an emergency. The vehicle will have oxygen supply and carbon dioxide scrubbing system for 96 hours. The submersible is being developed to withstand sea pressure, which at 6000 metres, is 600 bar, that is, 600 times more than the atmospheric pressure,” he explained.
In case of an emergency, if the craft gets stuck at the bottom of the sea, the vehicle will drop emergency weights and surface.
“An emergency buoy with a guiding cable can be released from the submersible for location and rescue,” said the scientist, adding that a lot of attention is being given to the design, material and production of Matsya.
“The spherical shape is keeping in mind that it is a manned mission. The three member crew will comprise a pilot and two ocean scientists. The NIOT is in the process of recruiting the pilot,” said Ramadass. The pilot should have an engineering background and know how ballast and navigation systems function. “After recruitment, the pilots will be sent overseas for training and certification,” he added.
As per the planned schedule, the submersible will take three hours to go down 6000 metres and three hours to come up, with six hours for scientific exploration of the sea along with inspection of underwater strategic assets, especially gas, hydrates, poly metallic nodules, hydrothermal sulphites etc and engineering interventions,” said the noted oceanographer.
Poly metallic nodules, also called manganese nodules, are formed of concentric layers of iron and manganese hydroxides around a core found on the sea bottom. The deposits are of potential economic interest. Hydrothermal sulphites are sulphur compounds which form massive deposits on the sea floor, similar to cobalt crusts.