What is India's Samudrayaan Project? All about the 'Deep Ocean Mission' launched by Centre

Union Minister of State Dr Jitendra Singh launched India's first manned ocean mission, Samudrayaan, at National Institute of Ocean Techlogy (NIOT) in Chennai on October 29, 2021. With commencement of Unique Ocean Mission, India joined  elite group of countries that have specialist techlogy and vehicles to conduct subsea missions, including United States, Russia, France, Japan, and China.

Samudrayaan Mission will open up greater opportunities for growth in areas of clean energy, drinking water, and blue ecomy.

What is Samudrayaan Mission?

Samudrayaan mission is India's first manned ocean mission, with goal of sending men deep into ocean in a submersible vehicle for deep-ocean exploration and rare mineral mining. 200-crore Samudrayaan Mission will send three people to a depth of 6000 metres in sea in a manned submersible vehicle called MATSYA 6000 for deep underwater studies. Submarines have a maximum depth of roughly 200 metres.

Samudrayaan mission was anunced by National Institute of Ocean Techlogy (NIOT) in tandem with ISRO's Gaganyaan mission, which seeks to launch a manned mission into by 2022. Samudrayaan Mission was anunced by NIOT in 2019, with a launch date of 2021-22.

Rs 6000-crore Samudrayaan mission is part of Deep Ocean Mission. Cabinet Committee on Ecomic Affairs approved Ministry of Earth Sciences' (MoES) proposal for a "Deep Ocean Mission" on June 16, 2021. Deep Ocean Mission seeks to investigate deep ocean for resources, develop deep-sea techlogy for long-term ocean resource manment, and support Indian government's Blue Ecomy Initiatives.

"Personnel Sphere of 2.1m diameter to be used as a crew module up to 500 m water depth has been developed using mild steel and tested up to 600 m water depth in Bay of Bengal using research Vessel Sagar Nidhi during October, 2021," according to Ministry of Earth Science.

Samudrayaan Mission: Key Points

• Samudrayaan Mission's manned submersible vehicle MATSYA 6000 will help Ministry of Earth Sciences, MoES, conduct deep-ocean exploration for resources such as gas hydrates, polymetallic manganese dules, hydro-rmal sulphides, and cobalt crusts, which are found at depths of 1000 to 5500 metres. 
• Under Deep Ocean Mission, National Institute of Ocean Techlogy (NIOT) and Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) constructed manned submersible MATSYA 6000 with a depth capacity of 6000 metres. 
• submersible was designed with 12-hour operational endurance and emergency endurance systems that can last up to 96 hours.
• MATSYA 6000 submersible vehicle can crawl for 72 hours on seabed at a depth of 6 km. At a depth of 6000 metres, submersible will crawl at deep bottom with 6-degree freedom utilising a battery-powered propulsion system for 4 hours.

Im:  PTI/PIB