Why in the news?

  • Indian aquanauts dived into the Atlantic Ocean aboard France’s submersible Nautile as part of preparations for the Samudrayaan Project.

Samudrayan Project

  • Associated Program: It is part of the Deep Ocean Mission (DOM) launched by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
  • Aim: To send humans to a depth of 6,000 metres in the Central Indian Ocean Basin for deep-sea exploration.
  • Objectives
    • To demonstrate India’s capability in deep-sea human submersible technology.
    • To enable exploration and eventual exploitation of deep-sea resources such as polymetallic nodules (cobalt, nickel, manganese, copper).
    • To support blue economy initiatives and scientific research in marine biodiversity, hydrothermal vents, and oceanography.
    • To build India’s strategic and technological capacity in underwater mining and deep-sea missions.
  • Key Feature: MATSYA-6000
    • The manned submersible facilitates the direct observation by the humans in the deep ocean in exploring mineral resources rich in Nickel, Cobalt, rare earth, manganese, and other resources that can be used for scientific analysis.
    • It will be capable of taking three humans to a depth of 6 km.
  • Significance
    • Scientific: Enhances understanding of deep-sea ecosystems, climate change studies, and marine biology.
    • Economic: Exploration of polymetallic nodules (estimated 380 million tonnes in India’s allocated site by the UN’s International Seabed Authority).
    • Strategic: Positions India among a handful of nations (USA, Russia, China, Japan, France) with deep-sea human submersible capacity.
    • Technological: Strengthens indigenous capability in extreme environment engineering.
  • Challenges
    • High-risk environment: extreme pressure (600 times atmospheric), low temperature, darkness.
    • Safety and reliability of indigenous submersible technology.
    • Environmental concerns of deep-sea mining: biodiversity loss, seabed disturbance.
    • High cost of development and maintenance.
Deep Ocean Mission

  • Ministry: Ministry of Earth Sciences
  • Objective: To explore the deep ocean for resources and develop deep-sea technologies for sustainable use of ocean resources.
  • Six Major Components of the Deep Ocean Mission:
    • Development of technologies for deep-sea mining, and manned submersible
    • Development of ocean climate change advisory services
    • Technological innovations for exploration and conservation of deep-sea biodiversity
    • Deep ocean survey and exploration
    • Energy and fresh water from the ocean
    • Advanced marine station for ocean biology.

 

 

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