New Delhi: After India’s successful Chandrayaan-3 mission, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched the country’s first solar mission Aditya-L1.
Coming up next is Samudrayaan Mission — to explore the deep oceans.
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju shared pictures of ‘Matsya 6000’, a submersible vessel which is being developed by National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) in Chennai, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
India’s first manned Deep Ocean Mission aims to send three humans to a depth of 6 km into the ocean for deep-sea exploration and biodiversity assessments.
Rijiju, who visited NIOT to review the Matsya 6000, provided updates, and posted images and a video of him inside the vessel.
Next is “Samudrayaan”
This is ‘MATSYA 6000’ submersible under construction at National Institute of Ocean Technology at Chennai. India’s first manned Deep Ocean Mission ‘Samudrayaan’ plans to send 3 humans in 6-km ocean depth in a submersible, to study the deep sea resources and… pic.twitter.com/aHuR56esi7— Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) September 11, 2023
The Matsya 6000 vehicle has a normal operational endurance of 12 hours and can last up to 96 hours in emergencies to ensure human safety. The missions target completion date is 2026.
The manned submersible vessel will enable direct human observation in deep ocean to explore mineral-rich resources like nickel, cobalt, rare earths, manganese, along with sample collection for analysis.
Besides scientific research, Samudrayaan mission will facilitate innovations in underwater engineering, benefiting areas like asset inspection, tourism and promoting ocean literacy.
