Two Chennai-based aquanauts successfully dive 5,000m deep in Atlantic Ocean

CHENNAI: Two Chennai-based scientists successfully completed India’s maiden deep dive, reaching nearly 5,000 metres in the North Atlantic Ocean aboard the French submersible Nautile. The mission is a preparatory step for the Samudrayaan project, in which the indigenously built Matsya 6000 will carry three people to 6,000m by Dec 2027.

On Aug 4 and 5, National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) aquanauts Cdr Jatinder Pal Singh, a former Navy officer, descended to 5,002m, and R Ramesh to 4,025m, in separate dives. Three other scientists remained aboard the support vessel, tracking the dives and communicating with the aquanauts. Using a robotic arm, they placed the Indian flag on the ocean floor. The dives took place weeks after astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla became the first Indian to reach the International Space Station.

Cdr J P Singh said nearly half of the 10-hour expedition was spent descending and ascending. On the seabed, he collected samples with robotic arms, tested emergency ascent procedures, and assessed life-support functions under power failure and CO2 build-up scenarios. “At that depth, there is no sunlight; we trained with and without lights,” he said. Singh, who survived the week-long mission mostly on peanuts and lost nearly 3kg, has 3,000 dive hours, including a 670m dive record and 11 live submarine rescue operations.

Ramesh, an experienced ROV pilot, described the dive as “seeing through our eyes what we earlier only saw through cameras.” His five-hour mission included navigation, inspection, and sampling. “Two of us were lying prostrate while one sat in the French vehicle. In Matsya 6000, all three will be seated. It will also have advanced scientific sensors,” he said.

During a media interaction in New Delhi, Union minister Jitendra Singh called it part of India’s 'double conquest' of unexplored frontiers that will mark the beginning of value addition in India’s economic growth. The successful dive also put India in an elite group of fewer than half a dozen nations to have ventured so deep into the ocean. “When we have an Indian going in an Indian spaceship, we will have one or more Indians going down in a submersible, both indigenous vehicles,” he said.

Ministry of Earth Sciences secretary M Ravichandran said the expedition, conducted with France’s research institute Ifremer, provided hands-on training in pre-dive preparation, piloting, robotic arm use, deployment and retrieval, trajectory tracking, and acoustic communication. “We will undertake many more dives in this ship before using Matsya 6000,” he said.

The fourth-generation Matsya 6000, designed with multiple safety redundancies and an endurance of 96hours, was integrated for 5,000m and completed harbour wet tests in Chennai. It will undergo 500metre shallow water trials in 2026. A ship with a 27-tonne crane to lower the submersible is being built. A flotation unit, fabricated in France and tested in Norway, will arrive in Nov. The titanium sphere to carry the crew, being fabricated by ISRO, will withstand 600 bars of pressure. “Once it is ready, we can dive to 6,000m,” Ravichandran said.

NIOT director Balaji Ramakrishnan said every component, from fasteners to sensors, is being designed to endure crushing pressures. “Very soon our Matsya will take the dive,” he said.



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