India's deep-ocean habitation concept - a research lab 6,000 meters deep

The Indian Government's National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), under the Deep Ocean Mission “Samudrayaan” program, is building a scientific submersible 'Matsya-6000' that can take three crewto a depth of 6,000meters under the ocean on a 12-hour mission. The mission involves four hours of descent, four hours of in-situ deep-ocean exploration and four hours of ascent.

Subsequent to the successful qualification of Matsya’s mission-critical systems during the harbour wet test early this year, demonstration of the maiden human mission up to 500m water depths is planned before mid-2026. As a part of the Deep Ocean Mission, development of autonomous underwater vehicles and robotic systems is also undertaken in NIOT.

As a continuation of this, NIOT is also exploring a future concept of establishing a long-term underwater lab, which is 6,000 meters under the ocean. This underwater habitation concept is part of the scientific and exploratory vision that is being ideated for the year 2047.

"Deep-ocean research is essential to understand potential resources such as gas hydrates, poly-metallic nodules and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts; monitor climate change and ocean acidification; understand planetary-scale processes such as tectonic activities; discovering unique life forms around hydrothermal vents that provide insights on evolution of life on earth, explore and protect its vast, largely unexplored biodiversity; understanding ocean circulation processes that transport heat across the planet thus stabilizing climate," Dr. N. Vedachalam, Director, Deep Ocean Technologies Group, NIOT, explained to WION.

As deep-ocean research takes an extended period of time to yield results, sustained human presence in the deep-ocean lab would enable better insights into these research areas, experts from NIOT say. Human presence in these long-term underwater observatories is crucial as human presence allows for real-time decision-making, in-situ experimentation, as application of human expertise cannot be fully replicated by automated systems alone. It is just like how astronauts carry out experiments in the International Space Station, an orbiting lab that circles 400 km above the Earth. The idea behind this underwater lab is to expand upon the learning and technological developments that India would gain from the mission 'Samudrayaan'.

What experts point out about a habitable underwater lab?

For setting up such a facility, India would have to exponentially scale up the technologies that will be a part of "Samudrayaan". Experts point out that a habitable underwater lab would require a reliable supply of power and oxygen, mechanisms to remove carbon dioxide, a rugged structure with transparent view-through, safe docking and undocking of deep-ocean submersibles with the underwater lab to enable transport of crew to the lab and back, and ability to launch and retrieve underwater robotic vehicles, remotely from and to the lab. Human factors associated with long-term psychological and physiological well-being in these habitats also require due consideration.

The ongoing indigenous developments by NIOT’s Deep Ocean Technology group in Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) with homing and docking, swarm capabilities and robotic intervention systems could serve as “resident” vehicles in the underwater lab serving as “spatial range extenders” that enable scientists to conduct experiments up to several kilometres around the underwater lab, Dr Vedachalam added.

The very environment at depths of 6,000meters poses multiple challenges due to extreme pressure, low temperature, lack of communication, and geo-location. India would have to build an underwater lab that would withstand such extreme conditions, while housing scientists and their equipment within. As part of the development process, such a lab would be gradually tested at relatively safe depths of a few hundred meters before venturing into the unexplored deeper depths of the ocean.

On the possible locations for such an underwater lab, Dr. Vedachalam said that they could be deployed in unique areas of study: at 1,000meter water depth in the Krishna Godavari basin to study and explore gas hydrates which is a source of natural gas; at 3,000meter depths to study the sulphide deposits at hydrothermal vents, and poly-metallic nodules at 5,500meter water depths in the Central Indian Ocean.