'Samudrayaan Mission': Union Minister Shares Pictures Of 'MATSYA 6000' Submersible; Details Here
India's first manned Deep Ocean Mission 'Samudrayaan' plans to send 3 humans in 6-km ocean depth in a submersible.
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Monday shared pictures and video of 'Matsya 6000' submersible which is a part of the Samudrayaan mission.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the Minister of Earth Sciences said that 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 biodiversity assessment.
"The project will not disturb the ocean ecosystem. The Deep Ocean Mission supports the 'Blue Economy' vision of PM Narendra Modi and envisages sustainable utilization of ocean resources for economic growth of the country, improve livelihoods and jobs, and preserve ocean ecosystem health," Rijiju said.
"Our Scientists, Researchers and Engineers are fully devoted to make the Deep Ocean Mission very successful in a sustainable manner," he added.
The minister said that the National Institute of Ocean Technology and all the Institutes and Centres under Ministry of Earth Sciences have prepared documents in respective scientific domains to achieve Aatmanirbhar Bharat set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A video in the post shows Rijiju sitting inside the vessel, which is still under construction at National Institute of Ocean Technology at Chennai.
Deep Ocean Mission was approved by the Cabinet with the overall estimated cost of Rs 4077 crores for two phases of the Mission period during 2021-2026, Kiren Rijiju said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha in July 2023.
The allocated budget so far is Rs 1400 crore, out of which Rs 405.92 crores has already been disbursed and an expenditure of Rs 225.35 crores have been incurred, he said.
Rijiju said that under the mission, deep water Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) namely Ocean Mineral Explorer (OMe 6000) has been deployed for exploration.
Deep sea mineral exploration was performed using OMe 6000 AUV during December 2022 using research ship Sagar Nidhi at the Polymetallic Manganese Nodule (PMN) site at a depth of 5271 m in the allocated area of International Seabed Authority at central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB).
About 14 sq km area has been surveyed with all scientific payloads to generate high-resolution seabed features to understand and validate theresource potential at the exploration site.
About 1 km x 0.5 km area has been mapped using high resolution cameras for quantitative polymetallic manganese nodule resource abundance, distribution and deep-sea biodiversity, he said.
