BENGALURU: India’s first move towards deep sea exploration was successfully conducted by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai.
The maiden manned harbour trial of the much-awaited ‘Samudrayan’ project, a three-member deep sea exploration inside a fourth generation deep-ocean human scientific submersible — ‘Matsya-6000 — was held between January 27 and February 12.
The successful wet test of the ‘Matsya-6000’ at the L&T harbour in Tamil Nadu will now pave the way for conducting shallow-water demonstrations at depths reaching up to 500 metres by the end of 2025.
‘Samudrayan’ is an ambitious project of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and is being implemented as part of the `4,800 crore ‘Deep Ocean Mission’ (DOM). Under the ‘Samudrayan’ project ‘Matsya-6000’ will descend up to a depth of 6,000 metres in the Indian Ocean in stages by 2026. NIOT is an autonomous society under the MoES.
The state-of-the-art submersible has been engineered by the NIOT to accommodate three humans including one pilot within its compact 2.1-metre-diameter personnel sphere.
The fortnight-long underwater testing was held in a controlled set up for unmanned and manned trials at the harbour, at a depth of two metres under water.
“This (harbour trials) was the most important, incredible and intuitive step by the NIOT,” Director, NIOT, Balaji Ramakrishnan, told TNIE. “As the saying goes, the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. The harbour trials was our first step towards manned deep ocean exploration. Any ocean exploration will always be less than a handful. The opportunities in the field are vast,” he added.
The tests were aimed at assessing Matsya’s performance across several critical parameters such as robustness of power and control networks; flotation and stability of the vehicle; human support and safety systems, and manoeuvrability within limited degrees of freedom, specifically forward and reverse motion.
“The protocols for testing sequence are stringent and are vetted by an expert committee,” said the NIOT director.
“Navigation and underwater communication capabilities were also scrutinised during the trials. The scientific payloads, which included multiple sophisticated oceanographic sensors, were thoroughly tested and demonstrated to confirm their intended functionality. This demonstration phase comprised five unmanned dives and five manned dives. Each manned dive was rigorously qualified, ensuring the reliability of the life support system,” stated the MoES in an official release.
‘Matsya-6000’ features a “comprehensive set of components: the main ballast system for diving, thrusters for movement in all three directions, a battery bank for power supply, and syntactic foam for buoyancy. The system also includes a VHF for surface communication,” added the MoES release.