MoES: Deep Sea & Sky

Nodal ministry for Met-services and Ocean exploration.

1. Core Missions

• Deep Ocean Mission: exploration of polymetallic nodules and "Blue Economy."
• IMD: (India Meteorological Dept) for monsoon and cyclone forecasting.
• Polar Research: Maitri/Bharati stations in Antarctica.

🌦️ Bharat Forecast System 2025

• IITM Pune (Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology) developed and launched the Bharat Forecast System — one of the world's first indigenously developed high-resolution weather forecast systems.
• Improves India's weather prediction resolution from 12 km to 6 km, enabling village-specific forecasts.
• Uses a 'Triangular Cubic Octahedral Grid' model, delivering a 30% improvement in extreme rainfall forecasts and a 64% enhancement in core zones.
• Developed under Mission Mausam (₹2,000 crore budget allocation to upgrade India's climate forecasting infrastructure).
• Spearheaded by four women scientists; built through collaboration between IITM, IMD, and ISRO.

🌊 Cabinet Approves Deep Ocean Mission — True Origin Sanction 2021

• Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the Deep Ocean Mission on 16 June 2021 — the foundational sanctioning of the entire mission, of which the Samudrayaan launch (Oct 2021, below) was the manned-submersible component and the ISA-contract/exploration facts (above) are subsequent progress milestones.
• Total cost: ₹4,077 crore over 5 years, phased implementation; Phase 1 (2021-2024, 3 years): ₹2,823.4 crore. Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). Supports the Blue Economy Initiative.
• Six major components:
  1. Technologies for Deep Sea Mining & Manned Submersible — develop a manned submersible (3 persons to 6,000m depth) plus an Integrated Mining System for Polymetallic Nodules from the central Indian Ocean at 6,000m (India joins a very small club of nations with this capability; commercial exploitation pending the International Seabed Authority's commercial code).
  2. Ocean Climate Change Advisory Services — observation/modelling suite for seasonal-to-decadal climate projections (supports coastal tourism).
  3. Technological innovations for deep-sea biodiversity exploration/conservation — bio-prospecting of deep-sea flora/fauna/microbes (supports Marine Fisheries).
  4. Deep Ocean Survey and Exploration — identify multi-metal Hydrothermal Sulphide mineralization sites along Indian Ocean mid-oceanic ridges.
  5. Energy and freshwater from the Ocean — engineering design for an offshore Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)-powered desalination plant.
  6. Advanced Marine Station for Ocean Biology — human capacity building in ocean biology/engineering with business-incubator facilities.
• Context: India has a 7,517 km coastline, 9 coastal states, 1,382 islands, with ~30% of population in coastal areas; the UN declared 2021-2030 the "Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development"; India's "New India by 2030" vision (Feb 2019) named Blue Economy as one of 10 core growth dimensions.

🚢 Samudrayaan Launched — India's First Manned Ocean Mission 2021

• Samudrayaan, India's first manned ocean mission, was launched in Chennai (29 October 2021) by Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
• With this launch, India joined the elite club of nations (USA, Russia, Japan, France, China) possessing manned underwater vehicles for subsea activities.
• Purpose: deep ocean exploration of non-living resources — polymetallic manganese nodules, gas hydrates, hydro-thermal sulphides, cobalt crusts — located at depths of 1,000-5,500 metres.
• The manned submersible under development, MATSYA 6000 (preliminary design completed at launch), is being developed by MoES-NIOT under the Deep Ocean Mission, with support from ISRO, IITM, and DRDO.
• Design specs: carries 3 persons in a 2.1-metre-diameter Titanium Alloy Personnel Sphere; 12-hour operational endurance, with emergency-endurance systems supporting up to 96 hours.
• Timeline announced at launch: sea trials of a 500m-rated shallow-water version expected by Q4 2022; the full 6000m-rated MATSYA 6000 expected ready for trials by Q2 2024.
• Context cited at launch: China's Fendouzhe manned submersible (2020) had reached ~11,000m depth.
• Manned submersibles offer better direct-intervention capability than unmanned ROVs (used for high-resolution bathymetry, biodiversity assessment, geo-scientific observation, and search/salvage) despite unmanned vehicles' improved manoeuvring/vision systems.
• See below for India's subsequent first aquanaut deep-sea dives (2025) as a prelude to this mission.

🤿 India's First Aquanauts — Deep Ocean Dive to 5,000m 2025

• Two Indian aquanauts — Raju Ramesh (Senior Scientist) and Cdr. Jatinder Pal Singh (Retd), both from the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai — conducted India's first-ever deep ocean dives, reaching 4,025m and 5,002m respectively, in the Atlantic Ocean (5-6 August 2025).
• Dives were conducted aboard the French research institute IFREMER's submersible "Nautile", under an Indo-French collaboration.
• India now joins an elite group of fewer than half a dozen nations to have gone this deep.
• This is a prelude to India's Samudrayan Mission (part of the Deep Ocean Mission), which aims to send 3 aquanauts to 6,000m depth in the indigenously developed submersible MATSYA-6000 by 2027.
• MATSYA-6000 completed wet trials at L&T Shipyard, Kattupalli in Jan-Feb 2025 and is expected to undergo 500m shallow-water trials by 2026. Upon completion, India will become the 6th nation with its own deep-ocean human submersible.
• India has also signed a contract with the International Seabed Authority for exploring deep-sea minerals at depths of 4,000-5,500m.

🌋 Carlsberg Ridge — Exclusive Polymetallic Sulphide Exploration Rights 2025

• India secured exclusive exploration rights in the Carlsberg Ridge (Indian Ocean) — Ministry of Earth Sciences signed a new 15-year contract with the International Seabed Authority (ISA) on 20 September 2025.
• Rights cover exploration of Polymetallic Sulphides (PMS) — metal-rich hydrothermal precipitates containing iron, copper, zinc, silver, gold, platinum — across a 10,000 sq km area of the Carlsberg Ridge.
• This makes India the first country in the world to hold two ISA contracts for PMS exploration (the other being in the Central Indian Ridge & Southwest Indian Ridge) — giving India the largest PMS exploration area allocated globally in international seabed.
• Part of India's Deep Ocean Mission (seabed mineral exploration, mining tech development, Blue Economy). India was historically the first country to receive a polymetallic-nodule exploration area from ISA and was designated a "Pioneer Investor" (India's ISA partnership now spans 30 years).
• India hosted the 8th ISA Annual Contractors Meeting in Goa (18-20 September 2025).

🌍 PRITHvi VIgyan (PRITHVI) — Umbrella Scheme 2024

• Cabinet approved the overarching scheme "PRITHvi VIgyan (PRITHVI)" (5 Jan 2024) at a total cost of ₹4,797 crore, implementation period 2021-26.
• Consolidates 5 ongoing sub-schemes into one umbrella framework: ACROSS (Atmosphere & Climate Research-Modelling Observing Systems & Services), O-SMART (Ocean Services, Modelling Application, Resources and Technology), PACER (Polar Science and Cryosphere Research), SAGE (Seismology and Geosciences), and REACHOUT (Research, Education, Training and Outreach).
• Objectives: sustain long-term Earth-system observations (atmosphere/ocean/geosphere/cryosphere/solid earth), build weather/ocean/climate hazard prediction models, explore polar/high-seas regions, develop tech for sustainable ocean-resource harnessing, and translate Earth-science research into public services.
• Implemented across MoES's 10 institutes: IMD, NCMRWF, CMLRE, NCCR, NCS, NIOT, INCOIS, NCPOR, IITM, NCESS.
• (Distinct from the later Mission Mausam — see the Bharat Forecast System entry above — which is a separate ₹2,000 crore weather-forecasting infrastructure upgrade under IITM/IMD, approved Sept 2024.)

2. Conclusion

Success lies in moving from "Surface" to "Abyss-Saturated & Forecast-Verified Earth Saturation."