New York, June 20: The OceanGate submersible, Titan went missing during a dive to the Titanic wreck in the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday. The rescue mission is still underway for the tourist submarine.
Since the missing submersible was using Elon Musk's Starlink satellites for its communications at sea, it might provide the exact location where it was seen last. Anushka Sharma Partners With WhatsApp To Highlight New Privacy and Safety Features for Women (View Post).
Starlink is one of the many ambitious projects of Elon Musk. With this project, SpaceX is trying to create a vast constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit and offer global internet coverage. Now, it might help the Titanic submarine rescue mission.
While in the ocean, OceanGate Expeditions uses the Starlink system to communicate. Titan also maintains contact with the surface vessel via Elon Musk's Starlink system.
According to the Coast Guard, the Titan submerged Sunday morning and lost contact with its support vessel about an hour and 45 minutes later. There was one pilot and four “mission specialists” aboard.
“Mission specialists” includes people who pay to go on OceanGate’s expeditions and take turns performing various tasks. As of 2023, OceanGate’s mission support fee is USD 250,000 a person.
The tourists in the missing submarine include a British businessman Hamish Harding and a University College London Professor, Alistair Greig.
It is to be noted that the Titanic submarine is designed to automatically surface if it runs into trouble. However, the five-person submersible requires a ship to launch and recover. Elon Musk Backs Joe Rogan’s $100K Debate Challenge to Vaccine Scientist After Robert F Kennedy Jr Podcast.
Some of the speculated problems are said to be a power failure, communication failure, or a leak in the pressure hull. An expert revealed that if the submersible can’t get back up under its own power, the options are very limited. Also, if it is beyond the continental shelf, very few vessels can get that deep and recover it.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 20, 2023 04:28 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).