The Deep Ocean Mission and Samudrayaan

The Deep Ocean Mission is India’s plan to explore the deep sea. It also aims to build the tools to use ocean resources in a lasting way. The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) is the nodal ministry.

When was it approved and launched?

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved it on 16 June 2021.
• The estimated cost is Rs 4,077 crore over five years, in phases.
• The first phase covers three years, 2021 to 2024, at Rs 2,823.4 crore.
• MoES launched the mission on 7 September 2021.

Why does India need it?

The Cabinet note says about 95 per cent of the deep ocean is unexplored. India has a 7,517 km coastline, nine coastal states and 1,382 islands. About 30 per cent of Indians live in coastal areas.

The United Nations named 2021 to 2030 the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. India’s Vision of New India by 2030 lists the Blue Economy as one of ten core growth areas.

What does “mission mode” mean here?

The Cabinet called it a mission mode project to support the Blue Economy. The Cabinet release calls it a multi-institutional mission. Many institutions work on it together.

What should you remember?

• Nodal ministry: MoES, not Ports, Shipping and Waterways.
• Approved June 2021, launched September 2021.
• Cost: Rs 4,077 crore over five years.

The Cabinet release lists six major components. PIB later calls them verticals. Each one links to a Blue Economy priority area.

What does each component do?

1. Deep-sea mining and a manned submersible. India builds a submersible for three people to reach 6,000 metres. It also builds an Integrated Mining System for polymetallic nodules.
2. Ocean climate change advisory services. A set of observations and models will give climate projections from seasonal to decadal scales.
3. Deep-sea biodiversity. The focus is bio-prospecting of deep-sea plants, animals and microbes.
4. Deep ocean survey and exploration. It looks for hydrothermal sulphide mineral sites along the Indian Ocean mid-oceanic ridges.
5. Energy and freshwater from the ocean. It studies an offshore Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) desalination plant.
6. Advanced Marine Station for Ocean Biology. It builds skills and business incubators in ocean biology and engineering.

Which two verticals handle seabed minerals?

PIB says verticals 1 and 4 support exploration of nodules and sulphides. Vertical 1 covers nodules. Vertical 4 covers sulphides.

How do you remember the six?

Mining and the submersible sit together in one component. That is why the list has six items, not seven.

Samudrayaan is a project under the Deep Ocean Mission. It covers the first component, the manned submersible. The submersible is called Matsya 6000.

Who is building it?

• MoES entrusted the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai, with designing and developing it.
• The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) of ISRO designed the personnel sphere.
• ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) developed the welding process.

What can it do?

• It is a fourth-generation, self-propelled submersible.
• It carries three people to 6,000 metres.
• Its operational endurance is 12 hours. Its emergency endurance is up to 96 hours.

What is the crew sphere made of?

The sphere is a titanium alloy, grade Ti6Al4V ELI. ISRO gives its diameter as 2,260 mm. The wall is 80 mm thick. It is expected to withstand 600 bar of pressure at about minus 3 degrees Celsius.

A PIB note from February 2025 calls the hull 2.1 metres in diameter. The two figures differ. Use 2,260 mm when ISRO’s number is asked.

Why was the welding a big deal?

ISRO says the weld needed high penetration. LPSC used electron beam welding. It tested the method in nearly 700 trials.

ISRO says an 80 mm weld over 7,100 mm took 32 minutes. It calls this a first for the country. Third-party certification of the process was planned.

What safety features does it have?

• A high-density Li-Po battery.
• An underwater acoustic telephone.
• Drop-weight emergency escape mechanisms.
• Bio-vests that monitor crew health.

Other parts are a main ballast system, thrusters for movement in three directions, and syntactic foam for buoyancy.

Is the submersible “sixth in the world”?

A PIB release of 14 August 2025 says India will be the sixth nation to develop its own deep-ocean human submersible.

Testing is moving in steps. Each step is deeper and riskier than the last.

What is the timeline?

• January to February 2025: wet trials at L&T’s harbour at Katupalli, near Chennai.
• 5 and 6 August 2025: Indian aquanauts dived to 4,025 m and 5,002 m in the Atlantic.
• Mid-2027 (planned): deep-water tests.
• 2027 to 2028 (planned): scientific exploration with Matsya 6000.

What happened in the 2025 Atlantic dives?

The aquanauts were Raju Ramesh and Cdr Jatinder Pal Singh (Retd), both from NIOT. They dived in IFREMER’s submersible Nautile. IFREMER is the French marine research institute. The dives lasted about seven hours in all.

PIB says India joined a group of fewer than half a dozen nations to go that deep. The dives are a prelude to the Samudrayan mission. That mission aims to send three aquanauts to 6,000 metres by 2027.

What did the NIOT team learn?

• Pre-dive preparation and piloting.
• Buoyancy management, descent and ascent.
• Using manipulators for flag placement and sampling.
• Operating the acoustic telephone.
• Dive planning and manoeuvring.

What did NIOT scientists gain in 2025?

The February 2026 reply says NIOT scientists gained pilot experience on the French submersible in August 2025.

Matsya 6000 is only one part. The mission also builds robots, ships and sensors.

What is OMe 6000?

OMe 6000 is the Ocean Mineral Explorer, an autonomous underwater vehicle. In December 2022 it explored the Central Indian Ocean Basin nodule site at 5,271 metres. It worked from the research vessel Sagar Nidhi. It surveyed 14 square kilometres.

What did mining tests show?

In 2024 India collected over 100 kg of cobalt-rich nodules from 1,173 metres in the Andaman Sea. This was a demonstration, not commercial mining.

What did the biodiversity work find?

• About 1,845 deep-sea microbes were isolated from the Indian EEZ.
• 25 seamounts were surveyed off Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar region.
• The survey recorded 195 deep-sea species, including 39 potential new taxa.

CMLRE, Kochi, did the seamount work.

What about vents and ocean observation?

• NCPOR, Goa, found two active and two inactive hydrothermal vents using AUV surveys.
• INCOIS, Hyderabad, completed 11 glider missions in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal.
• It also deployed 60 wave drifters and 92 Argo floats in the Indian Ocean.
• A 100-year extreme sea level prediction was done for the coasts, with vulnerability maps.

How many projects support the mission?

The mission has sanctioned 141 collaborative projects. They involve about 69 national government and private institutions.

India wants metals for batteries, power grids and solar systems. The deep sea holds some of them. A UN body decides who may explore the seabed beyond national waters.

What are polymetallic nodules and sulphides?

• Nodules (PMN) lie on abyssal plains. They hold nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese.
• Sulphides (PMS) form around hydrothermal vents. They hold copper, zinc, lead, iron, silver, gold and platinum.

What are cobalt crusts?

Cobalt crusts form on seamount flanks and tops. They contain iron, manganese, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare metals, including rare earth elements.

What is the International Seabed Authority?

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is an autonomous body in the UN system. Its headquarters are in Kingston, Jamaica. Its members are parties to the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, UNCLOS, including the European Union. In June 2026 the UN Legal Counsel said UNCLOS has 172 parties.

It regulates mineral activity in “the Area”. That is the seabed beyond national jurisdiction. UNCLOS treats these resources as the common heritage of mankind.

What contracts does India hold?

• 2002: polymetallic nodules, Central Indian Ocean Basin, 75,000 sq km.
• 2016: polymetallic sulphides, Central and South West Indian Ridges, 10,000 sq km.
• 15 September 2025: a new 15-year sulphides contract, Carlsberg Ridge, 10,000 sq km.

PIB says India is the first country to hold two ISA contracts for sulphide exploration.

How deep are the contract areas?

The Minister said India has signed a contract with the International Seabed Authority for exploring deep-sea minerals at depths of 4,000 to 5,500 metres. The Integrated Mining System in component 1 is planned for 6,000 metres.

Can India mine commercially under these contracts?

Not yet. The Cabinet release says commercial exploitation will follow when the ISA evolves a commercial exploitation code. Exploration studies come first.

What about blocks inside Indian waters?

India also auctions offshore blocks under its own law. This is separate from ISA contracts. The Offshore Areas Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, 2002 governs it. Parliament amended the Act in 2023, and the Ministry of Mines can now auction offshore blocks.

On 30 September 2026 PIB said the Ministry of Mines would launch an auction of two Andaman Sea blocks the next day. They are offered for a composite licence.

PIB gives no block names or sizes. Press reports add these details. They are not official figures:

• Press reports say the first auction began on 28 November 2024 with 13 blocks. They say it was cancelled in December 2025 for low bidder interest.
• They say the minimum qualified bidders for a first attempt fell from three to two on 24 September 2026.
• They name the two blocks as West Sewell Ridge-01 (1,000 sq km) and Sewell Rise-01 (632 sq km), near Great Nicobar.

What is the debate?

PIB says baseline environmental studies, including biodiversity assessments, are part of the contract.

What is Sagar Manthan?

Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) launched the Ocean Research Vessel Sagar Manthan on 9 September 2026. The launch was at the Rishi Bankim Shipyard, Kolkata. The vessel is being built for the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) under MoES.

• It is 89.50 m long, 18.80 m wide, and about 5,900 tonnes.
• It can survey at depths up to 6,000 metres.
• It is built under Vertical 4 at about Rs 840 crore.
• It is designed to work in extreme conditions, including the Southern Ocean.

What did Parliament hear in February 2026?

MoES told the Lok Sabha on 4 February 2026 that the Matsya 6000 design and system engineering are complete. It also said the design of a new oceanographic research vessel is done. GRSE has finished model tests and block construction.

What did the Prime Minister announce in August 2025?

On 15 August 2025 the Prime Minister said India will start a National Deep Water Exploration Mission. It will look for oil and gas reserves under the sea.

UPSC has asked about this topic twice in recent years. The 2026 question is direct. The 2021 question is about seabed licences.

What was the 2026 question?

UPSC Prelims 2026, GS Paper I, Q50 (Series A):

“Which of the following statements with regard to India’s Deep Ocean Mission is/are correct ?

1. It was launched by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Government of India.
2. Matsya-6000 has been designed to carry 3 people for deep sea exploration.
3. Samudrayaan is a project under this mission.”

• (a) 1 only
• (b) 2 and 3 only
• (c) 1 and 2 only
• (d) 1, 2 and 3

What is the answer and why?

UPSC’s provisional key (Series A, published 27 May 2026) gives (b) for this question.

• Statement 1 is wrong. MoES is the nodal ministry.
• Statement 2 is right. Matsya 6000 carries three people.
• Statement 3 is right. Samudrayaan is the mission’s submersible project.

What was the 2021 question?

UPSC Prelims 2021, GS Paper I, Q56 (Series A):

“Consider the following statements :

1. The Global Ocean Commission grants licences for seabed exploration and mining in international waters.
2. India has received licences for seabed mineral exploration in international waters.
3. ‘Rare earth minerals’ are present on seafloor in international waters.

Which of the statements given above are correct?”

• (a) 1 and 2 only
• (b) 2 and 3 only
• (c) 1 and 3 only
• (d) 1, 2 and 3

How do you solve it?

• Statement 1 is a trap. The International Seabed Authority grants the licences.
• Statement 2 is right. India holds ISA contracts, signed in 2002, 2016 and 2025.
• Statement 3 is right. Cobalt crusts contain rare earth elements.
• So the answer is (b). UPSC’s official key also gives (b).

What is the common trap?

UPSC swaps the ministry or the body. Remember two pairs. Deep Ocean Mission goes with MoES. Seabed licences go with the ISA.