Science & Innovation

NIOT Chennai and Samudrayaan: India’s Deep Ocean Mission

Chennai's NIOT is building Matsya-6000, India's first crewed deep-sea submersible. Here is how it works, where trials stand and what else the institute does.

19 October 2026

Chennai FalconMr. Parthasarathy aka Chennai Falcon is passionate about…

Updated 2026-10-29, 2:05 AM

India’s first crewed deep-sea submersible, Matsya-6000, is being built and tested in Chennai by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), and it is the centrepiece of Samudrayaan, the human dive programme within the Union government’s ₹4,077 crore Deep Ocean Mission. The submersible is designed to carry three people to 6,000 metres, according to a PIB backgrounder from August 2025.

NIOT was set up in November 1993 as an autonomous society under what is now the Ministry of Earth Sciences, with a brief to develop Indian technology for using the living and non-living resources of the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone, its website says. It traces its roots to work at IIT Madras and now runs a 50-acre campus in the city, ThePrint reported. Here is what the institute does and where the deep-ocean mission stands.

The Deep Ocean Mission in brief

The Ministry of Earth Sciences launched the mission on 7 September 2021, with ₹4,077 crore spread over five years and delivered in phases. The PIB note lists its parts:

Deep-sea mining technology and a crewed submersible (Samudrayaan).
Ocean climate change advisory services.
Exploration and conservation of deep-sea biodiversity.
Surveys of mineral-rich hydrothermal sulphide sites on Indian Ocean ridges.
Energy and fresh water from the ocean, including a study for a desalination plant run on ocean thermal energy.
An advanced marine station for ocean biology.

The main prize is polymetallic nodules, potato-sized lumps on the seabed rich in nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper. India has been allotted a 75,000 sq km area in the Central Indian Ocean for exploration, with an estimated resource of about 380 million tonnes, ThePrint reported. NIOT’s role there is exploration, not extraction; commercial mining waits on rules from the International Seabed Authority, the PIB note says.

Matsya-6000: what makes it hard

At 6,000 metres the water pressure is about 600 times that at the surface. Matsya-6000’s crew sphere is made of titanium alloy, 2,260 mm across with walls 80 mm thick, rated for 600 bar and temperatures down to minus 3 degrees Celsius. ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre developed the electron-beam welding used on the hull after about 700 trials. The craft is designed for 12 hours of normal operation and up to 96 hours in an emergency, and carries a drop-weight escape system, an underwater acoustic telephone and bio-vests to monitor the crew, according to the PIB note. NIOT is co-developing it with ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.

The submersible weighs about 28 tonnes and descends at roughly 30 metres a minute, a PTI report from November 2025 said. Its two pilots, Raju Ramesh and Jatinder Pal Singh, are NIOT scientists.

Where the trials stand

Testing has moved in steps, mostly off the Chennai coast:

Early 2025: wet trials at L&T Shipyard, Kattupalli Port, north of the city (PIB).
2025: a steel crew sphere rated to 500 m, used as a stand-in, completed three uncrewed and three crewed dives at 500 m, Shaastra magazine reported in its September 2025 issue.
5 and 6 August 2025: Raju Ramesh and Jatinder Pal Singh dived in the Atlantic aboard France’s Nautile submersible, reaching about 4,025 m and 5,002 m. Each dive lasted more than nine hours.
2026: PIB and PTI both pointed to a 500 m demonstration of the full submersible off Chennai in early 2026.
2027 to 2028: the 6,000 m science dives in the Central Indian Ocean, according to the PIB note. Shaastra said the finished Matsya-6000 was expected by March 2027.

We could not find an official statement confirming the outcome of the 2026 shallow-water demonstration as of 18 October 2026. Dates for deep missions like this often move.

NIOT’s other work that touches Chennai

The submersible is only one strand. Other NIOT projects named in official and published records:

Deep-sea robots: ROSUB 6000, a remotely operated vehicle launched in 2010, was the first in India to go below 5,000 m. In December 2022 an autonomous vehicle, OMe 6000, surveyed 14 sq km of seabed at 5,271 m in the Central Indian Ocean Basin from the research ship Sagar Nidhi.
Drinking water for islands: NIOT built low-temperature thermal desalination plants on Kavaratti, Agatti and Minicoy in Lakshadweep, which use the difference between warm surface water and cold deep water. A 2023 Lok Sabha answer gave their capacity as one lakh litres a day and listed six more islands for new plants.
Chennai’s rain radar: an X-band weather radar on the NIOT campus at Pallikaranai serves as the city’s short-range nowcasting radar, used alongside IMD’s S-band radar at Chennai Port, The Federal reported in September 2026.

Quick answers

What is Samudrayaan?

It is India’s crewed deep-ocean dive programme, part of the Deep Ocean Mission. Its vehicle, Matsya-6000, is designed to take three people to 6,000 m.

Where is NIOT in Chennai?

NIOT is in Pallikaranai in south Chennai, the site of the X-band radar the city uses for rain nowcasts. Final assembly of Matsya-6000 is done there.

When will the 6,000 m dive happen?

The government’s August 2025 note planned science dives for 2027 to 2028. Treat any date as a target.

Who runs NIOT?

It is an autonomous institute of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, governed by a council and headed by a director. PTI named Balaji Ramakrishnan as director in November 2025.

Information checked against official sources on 18 October 2026. Fees, dates and rules can change; confirm on the linked official pages before acting.