Samudrayaan aquanaut eyes deep diving record

THE 'Samudrayaan' mission test pilot and former Naval officer, Jatinder Pal Singh (38) has now eyes set on a world record in solo deep diving into the Mariana Trench, the deepest oceanic trench on the Earth, located in the Pacific Ocean.

- BALA CHAUHAN @Bengaluru

Singh is the first Indian to have dived deepest into the ocean (North Atlantic) at 5,003 metres - maximum so far by an Indian - on August 6 as the test pilot of 'Samudrayaan'.

A project of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), 'Samudrayaan' will be the first manned deep-sea venture, scheduled for 2027 in 'Matsya 6000', an indigenous submersible developed by the NIOT. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is developing the hull or the human sphere of 'Matsya'. The expedition is being implemented as part of the ₹4,800 crore 'Deep Ocean Mission' (DOM) by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai.