Deep sea mission: ISRO design for crew module ready, says secy

India's ambition to send men to deep sea in a submersible vehicle appears to be one step closer to fruition with ISRO successfully developing a design for its crew module, a sphere shaped capsule.

" design for manned submersible's sphere has been successfully developed by ISRO. w it has to be certified and n we will go ahe with fabrication," Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Mhavan Nair Rajeevan said. Interacting with journalists on sidelines of silver jubilee celebrations of National Institute of Ocean Techlogy here, top official said that designing sphere (intended to be built using titanium) involved complex techlogy.

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"ISRO has developed design and it will be sent to an international ncy for certification," he said, ding that Indian ncy has taken up both designing as well as fabrication -at a later st- of sphere.

A three member crew can be accommodated in sphere, one of key components of manned submersible vehicle. "Work is alrey on for deep ocean mission and scientific and technical work has started," he said.

An MoU has alrey been signed between ISRO and NIOT on development of module. NIOT is tasked with aspects like electronics and navigation for manned submersible. Also, multiple ncies, including Goa based National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology at Kochi and Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (Hyderab) are involved in initiatives.

submersible vehicle is expected to travel to a depth of approximately 6,000 metres under sea for various studies, whereas submarines can reach only about 200 metres. This initiative is a part of Deep Ocean Mission. As part of ambitious Rs 10,000 crore Deep Ocean Mission, India will also study climate change in deep oceans.

Studying climate change, marine biodiversity and survey for compounds like hydrocarbons and minerals are part of deep ocean mission. 

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