New Titanic expedition, first since 2023 submersible disaster, will photograph sunken ship

A group of undersea specialists is heading for the sunken ship RMS Titanic to photograph its wreck site and debris field, a high-tech, high-resolution effort organizers say will produce detailed photos that will give new insight into the liner’s deteriorating condition.

The Titanic, often called the world's most tragic shipwreck, hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage and sank on April 15, 1912 . More than 1,500 people died. About 700 were saved.

In Graphics: More Titanic secrets .

In the latest excursion to the sunken ship, RMS Titanic Inc. launched Titanic Expedition 2024 , a crew including videographers, photographers, scientists and historians, from Providence, Rhode Island, on Friday, the BBC reported. The team will spend about 20 days at the wreck site .

The Titanic mission is the first since five people died aboard the OceanGate submersible vehicle Titan on June 18, 2023. The craft imploded while descending to view the Titanic.

The two companies are separate, but one of those killed on the Titan included Paul-Henri Nargeolet , director of underwater research for RMS Titanic Inc. Nargeolet was scheduled to participate in the current Titanic expedition.

What will Titanic Expedition 2024 do?

RMS Titanic Inc. is a Georgia-based company that obtained salvage rights to the Titanic in June 1994. It's conducted eight research and recovery operations from 1987 to 2010, the company says.

In the current operation, engineers will send two remotely operated vehicles – called ROVs – 12,500 feet into the Atlantic to scan the wreck. No crewed visits are planned.

The company says its underwater cameras will survey the sunken ship and take high-resolution images to “preserve the existing state of the site digitally.”

New images will be compared with others taken in 2010 to learn more about the wreck’s deterioration and the condition of its artifacts to aid conservation efforts.

The company hopes to review the condition of the ship’s Marconi wireless room , from which the Titanic sent its distress signals on the night it sank.

The expedition will also hold a service in memory of those who died on the Titanic and place a plaque honoring Nargeolet on the sea floor.

Diving deeper into Titanic's debris field

Expedition specialists want to determine if other areas of Titanic's debris field exist. The field, the area of seafloor strewn with the ship's wreckage, is believed to be about 3 x 5 miles in size.

Undersea cameras will also look for new species of marine life.

Original dive mission opposed as too intrusive

The company’s current expedition is a scaled-back version of a Titanic visit it announced after the Titan’s loss in 2023.

RMS Titanic Inc. originally said it would retrieve objects from the debris field and was considering removing objects from inside the ship, including items from inside the Marconi wireless room, CBS reported.

The federal government filed a court motion in August 2023 to halt the expedition, saying it violated a 2017 federal law and an agreement with the U.K. about disturbing the Titanic.

RMS Titanic Inc. revised its mission plans in February and said it would not remove any items. The government ended its opposition on June 27, the Associated Press reported.

Even 112 years later, Titanic mystique endures

It seems most people can't get enough of the Titanic. The wreck was discovered Sept. 1, 1985, about 400 miles from the coast of Newfoundland at a depth of about 12,500 feet.

Hundreds of books have been written about the ship. James Cameron's film "Titanic" was released in 1997 and is in the top five highest-grossing films.

A full scan of the ship was completed by Magellan Ltd. , a deep-sea mapping company, in 2022. That produced 700,000 images that were used to create a 3-D representation , the BBC reported.

Source: USA TODAY Network reporting and research; RMS Titanic Inc.; Reuters; BBC; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New Titanic expedition, first since 2023 submersible disaster, will photograph sunken ship