Indian Aquanauts Hit a New Depth Record: 5,000 Meters!
NEW DELHI, India – August 14, 2025:Big news! A team of Indian aquanauts just pulled off some crazy deep dives, going over 5,000 meters down in the North Atlantic. The Ministry of Earth Sciences says this is a huge deal for India’s Deep Ocean Mission (DOM), also called Samudrayaan. The dives were done with help from France. Two Indian aquanauts got some seriously valuable experience in a French submersible before India launches its own deep-sea mission with people on board.
India Eyes Space and Sea
Union Earth Sciences Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh says India’s going after it all—space and the ocean depths. He’s linking this dive with India’s recent space stuff, like sending an Indian to the International Space Station, to show India’s serious about both.
The dives happened on August 5 and 6 in the French sub Nautile. This gave Indian experts a chance to see how deep-sea stuff really works before they use India’s own vehicle.
Meet the Aquanauts
Raju Ramesh, a scientist from the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), and Jatinder Pal Singh, a retired Indian Navy Commander, were the aquanauts. On August 5, Raju Ramesh went down to 4,025 meters.
Then, on August 6, Jatinder Pal Singh went even deeper, hitting 5,002 meters. These dives are the first time an Indian’s been that deep. They grabbed awesome data and showed India’s getting really good at deep-sea tech.
Getting Ready for India’s Sub
This collab with France was mainly to get ready for India’s own Matsya 6000 sub, which they’re building right now. Matsya 6000 will carry three people down to 6,000 meters. NIOT is building it.
M. Ravichandran, a big shot at the Ministry of Earth Sciences, says the sub should be ready for its own manned dive by December 2027. Once it’s up and running, India will be one of the few countries that can do these kinds of missions.
Why This Matters
The Deep Ocean Mission (DOM), which got the go-ahead in 2021 with a big budget, is a program with lots of different parts. It’s about getting deep-sea mining tech, seeing what ocean life is down there, using ocean energy, and getting better at ocean weather stuff.
The mission is key to India’s blue economy, which means using ocean resources in a way that doesn’t screw things up. These successful dives show India’s really going for it when it comes to the ocean’s potential.
