Deep Ocean Mission: Samudrayaan in sight, India takes a 5,002m plunge

NEW DELHI: In a first-of-its-kind expedition, India sent an aquanaut 5,002m deep into the ocean as part of the country's Deep Ocean Mission , which involves development of crewed and uncrewed submersibles and deep-sea mining technologies, aimed at harnessing resources from the Exclusive Economic Zone and continental shelf.

As part of Indo-French research collaborations, two Indian aquanauts - Jatinder Pal Singh and Raju Ramesh - successfully completed one deep dive each in the North Atlantic Ocean in the French submersible "Nautile" on August 5 and 6. Happening as it did around a month after Shubhanshu Shukla became the first Indian to reach International Space Station, Union earth sciences minister Jitendra Singh Thursday called it India's quest for a double conquest. "We have an Indian going into space and an Indian going into the deep ocean almost simultaneously," he said.

Ramesh, a scientist at National Institute of Ocean Technology, went 4,025m down on August 5, followed by a dive of 5,002m by Navy commander (retd) Singh on August 6. "This expedition was conducted as part of Deep Ocean Mission. One of the verticals of DOM aims to develop technology to harness non-living ocean resources and a submersible which can carry humans to the deepest parts of the ocean," said M Ravichandran, secretary, ministry of earth sciences.

He said more dives will be undertaken in the same submersible before India conducts a deep dive in indigenous ' Matsya 6000 ' submersible, which could happen around Dec 2027, under ' Samudrayaan ' project.

'Shux may meet PM this weekend'

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the second Indian to travel to space and the first to visit ISS, is expected to arrive in India this weekend and is set to meet PM Modi before leaving for hometown Lucknow to meet family, reports Surendra Singh. This was revealed by space minister Jitendra Singh, who said Shukla will return to Delhi for National Space Day celebrations on August 23.