BENGALURU : The harbour trial for ‘Samudrayaan’ -- a three-member deep sea mission that is scheduled for 2025 -- is now likely to be held in June, after the Lok Sabha elections, said sources, who didn’t wish to be named. The harbour trials were initially scheduled for March-April this year in Chennai by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT).
The postponement is because of “delay in delivery of some components of the vehicle,” the sources added. ‘Samudrayaan’ is an ambitious project of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and is being implemented as part of the Rs 4,800 crore ‘Deep Ocean Mission’ (DOM). NIOT is an autonomous society under the MoES.
After the harbour trial, the NIOT will plan shallow water exploration at the depth of 500 metres in the ocean later this year before the final deep sea mission at 6,000 metres sometime next year. The shallow water exploration is being planned inside the Bay of Bengal in a steel submersible.
“NIOT has recruited a former naval officer to pilot Samudrayaan exploration and two other pilots. The latter are trained in handling unmanned sea vehicles. They, along with some other ocean scientists at the institute are being trained as pilots who will conduct manned deep sea explorations subject to approval,” said sources. In the latter half of the year, NIOT is also expecting the delivery of a titanium alloy human sphere, which will seat the three ocean explorers from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Titanium is lighter but stronger than steel, and keeps the weight of deep-diving vehicles as low as possible. It requires minimum maintenance, has an extended lifecycle and has incomparable anti-corrosive properties. Other components for ‘Matsya 6000’ like the syntactic foam for the manned chamber are being imported and delivery is expected later this year. Syntactic foams, a mixture of billions of microscopic hollow glass or ceramic spheres in epoxy or plastic resin are widely used in submarines because of their remarkable buoyancy and strength.