Why in news?  India is now preparing for a ground-breaking journey to explore 6-kilometre deep ocean waters with its ‘Samudrayaan’ mission.

Highlights:

• It is India’s first manned deep ocean mission to send 3 humans in 6-km ocean depth in a submersible to study the deep sea resources and biodiversity assessment.
• The Deep Ocean Mission supports the ‘Blue Economy’ and envisages sustainable utilization of ocean resources for economic growth of the country, improve livelihoods and jobs, and preserve ocean ecosystem health
• Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) is the nodal ministry to implement this multi-institutional ambitious mission.
• The mission will lead to innovations in underwater engineering, benefiting areas such as asset inspection, tourism, and promoting ocean literacy

What is the ‘MATSYA 6000’?

• It is an Indian crewed deep-submergence vehicle intended to be utilised for deep-sea exploration of rare minerals under the Deep Ocean mission.
• Developed at Chennai’s National Institute of Ocean Technology, the machine is designed to carry a trio of humans.
• The Manned Submersible will enable direct human observation in the deep ocean, aiding in the exploration of mineral-rich resources such as Nickel, Cobalt, Rare Earths, and Manganese, along with sample collection for analysis
• Launch would make India among six countries (US, Russia, Japan, France, and China) to have piloted a crewed under-sea expedition beyond 5,000 metres.

About Deep Ocean mission

• It is an Indian initiative to undertake the deep ocean exploration focused on India’s exclusive economic zones and continental shelf.
• The program will consist of various crewed and uncrewed submersibles exploring the sea bed.
• One of the primary aims of the mission is to explore and extract polymetallic nodules, which are composed of minerals like manganese, nickel, cobalt, copper and iron hydroxide.
• It is implemented by Ministry of Earth Sciences

Note: India was the first country in the world, to have sponsored the exploration of deep sea mineral viz polymetallic nodules, in the central Indian Ocean basin in 1987.