Samudrayaan Mission

General Studies Paper -3

Context: The minister of Earth Sciences confirmed that the Samudrayaan mission is scheduled to explore the bed of the ocean by 2025 end.

• India is on a path to send its scientists to study the deep ocean 6 km under the sea surface under the mission.

India’s Deep Ocean Mission (DOM)

• DOM is implemented by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES)and was approved in 2021 at a cost of nearly Rs 4,077 crore over a five-year period in a phased manner.

Samudrayaan Mission

• As a part of DOM, India’s flagship deep ocean mission, ‘Samudrayaan’, was initiated in 2021 by the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
• With ‘Samudrayaan’, India is embarking on a crewed expedition to reach a depth of 6,000 m to the ocean bed in the central Indian Ocean.
• This journey will be accomplished by Matsya6000, a deep-ocean submersible.

Matsya6000

• The Matsya6000 is India’s flagship deep-ocean human submersible that aims to reach the ocean bed at a depth of 6,000 m.
• Accompanied by three crew members, called “aquanauts”, the submersible carries a suite of scientific tools and equipment designed to facilitate observations, sample collection, basic video and audio recording, and experimentation.
• The submersible will be equipped with a suite of scientific sensors and tools, and have an operational endurance of12 hours, which is expandable up to 96 hours in the event of an emergency.
• Constructed from a titanium alloy, the sphere is engineered to withstand pressures of up to 6,000 bar.
• It can move at a speed of about 5 km/hr using underwater thrusters.

Significance

• So far, countries such as the S., Russia, China, France and Japan have carried out successful deep-ocean crewed missions. India is poised to join the ranks of these nations by demonstrating expertise of and capability for such missions.
• The ‘New India 2030’ document outlines the blue economy as the sixth core objective for India’s growth. The years 2021-2030 have been designated by the United Nations as the ‘Decade of Ocean Science’.
• DOM is one of nine missions under the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Advisory Council (PMSTIAC).
• The mission is significant for the sustainable extraction of valuable resources, including polymetallic nodules and polymetallic sulfides.