India just made history by being the first country to land on the Moon’s South Pole, but now it wants to go to the other extreme.
India is now developing a submarine called the Matsya 6000 to study the deepest depths of the ocean.
And its design was influenced by the doomed OceanGate sub Titan.
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The Matsya 6000 is being developed ahead of India’s first manned deep ocean mission, called the ’Samudrayaan Mission’.
With the Matsya 6000, India wants to dive to the sea floor in search of precious metals and minerals.
The submarine has been under development for the past two years, with designers keeping a close eye on the OceanGate Titan.
But after the Titan sub imploded, tragically killing everyone on board, developers looked to it for what to avoid rather than what to copy.
For starters, the Titan was built almost entirely out of carbon fiber, and the Matsya has been constructed out of 80mm thick titanium alloy.
With its titanium body, developers of the Matsya 6000 want it to withstand pressure 600 times greater than that at surface level.
That’s huge.
To put it in perspective, the OceanGate Titan imploded at a pressure of about 380 times that at surface level.
The Matsya, which means ‘fish’, is being developed to dive to depths of 6,000 meters.
And it will be large enough to fit three people on board.
Although, according to this photo, it might be a bit cramped inside.
India’s Union Minister of Earth Sciences Kiren Rijiju just shared images of the submersible to X, confirming they planned to send three people to a depth of 6km.
He said the point of the mission was to take advantage of ocean resources for the economic growth of the country.
He had big hopes for the mission too, saying it would work towards improving livelihoods, jobs, and preserve the health of the ocean ecosystem.
Developers of the Matsya 6000 will begin testing the submarine in the Bay of Bengal next year.
