The ship pairs advanced scientific research with high-end media content to make marine biology and conservation accessible.
- A one-stop shop -
A former oil exploration ship, OceanXplorer belongs to OceanX, which was founded by wealthy investor Ray Dalio and his son Mark.
It was retrofitted with everything from laboratories for genetic sequencing to helicopters for aerial surveys.
It is a "researcher's dream", according to Sekar Mira, a cetacean specialist on board from Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).
There are two submersibles -- one with 8K cameras for ultra-high-definition media content, and a science vessel equipped to collect samples from 1,000 metres under the sea.
For deeper exploration, there is a remotely-operated vehicle capable of diving to 6,000 metres, and the ship also has mapping radar, bongo nets for capturing plankton and a CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) instrument.
"It is essentially a one-stop shop for ocean science," said mission lead Andrew Craig. "There's nothing else like it in the world."
- Rotating science teams -
OceanXplorer has been at sea almost continuously since 2021. AFP joined as it surveyed biodiversity on a deep-sea mountain chain off Sulawesi island.
Each mission brings in local government and research institutions, and a new team of local scientists.
This time they include "megafauna" specialist Sekar, researching whales and dolphins, and genetics and molecular biotechnology expert Husna Nugrahapraja, who is "bioprospecting" compounds for new medicines.
"We will extract the DNA and then we want to do what is called metagenomic sequencing... and then we try to mine the data," said Husna, an assistant professor at Institut Teknologi Bandung.
Being able to do all that on board is "really impressive," he added.
BRIN marine biologist Nur Fitriah Afianti scrutinises plastic waste from thousands of metres below the surface for helpful microbes.
"Maybe the microbes can digest the plastic waste. Maybe, I hope," she said.
- eDNA work -
The visiting scientists are supported by OceanX experts like Larissa Fruehe, a specialist in environmental DNA (eDNA).
She calls it "the coolest thing ever" because of its potential to detect species long after they have left an environment.
"Every organism is releasing their DNA into their respective environment" in the form of feathers, hair, scales, mucus or even faeces, Fruehe said.
Filtering those traces from soil, air or water paints a picture of what has passed through.
OceanXplorer can "run a whole eDNA workflow in its entirety, from sampling to actual bioinformatic analysis", Fruehe said.
Among those working with eDNA on board is coelacanth specialist Alex Masengi.
He is hunting for signs of the ancient fish at 900 metres, far below its known range.
- Hollywood touches -
OceanX brought in Hollywood designers to make the ship telegenic, with a futuristic "mission control" and customisable lighting for optimal filming conditions.
It is a deliberate attempt to make marine science compelling for a mass audience, including OceanX's four million TikTok followers.
OceanX does not advertise the ship's cost or its operating budget, but its parent body's 2024 US tax filing reported over $44 million in expenses.
Much of that comes from the Dalio family, though outside grants help fund missions too.
Privately funded science can be controversial, but OceanX notes that its research is all publicly accessible, and it partners with government and institutions often unable to expend their limited resources on marine science.
- Research and filming firsts -
OceanXplorer trips have generated dozens of scientific papers, on everything from deep-sea shark behaviour in the Red Sea to whales and dolphins off Indonesia.
Its cameras have filmed rare footage of groups of coelacanths near Indonesia, and observed newly discovered brine pools in the Red Sea.
In between missions, students are invited on board as part of OceanX's education mission.
"It's about conservation, it's about education and it's about exploration," said Craig.
"They want to go to new places, they want to explore, and they want to bring back that knowledge and make it available to the public."
'So little we know': in submersibles revealing the deep sea
Aboard Oceanxplorer, Indonesia (AFP) Jan 26, 2026 -
A dome-fronted submersible sinks beneath the waves off Indonesia, heading down nearly 1,000 metres in search of new species, plastic-eating microbes and compounds that could one day make medicines.
This month, AFP boarded one of two submersibles belonging to OceanX, a non-profit backed by billionaire Ray Dalio and his son that brings scientists onto its OceanXplorer ship to study the marine world.
The ship boasts labs for genetic sequencing, a helicopter for aerial surveys and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) capable of descending up to 6,000 metres (19,700 feet) under the ocean surface.
Its two submersibles have everything from hydraulic collection arms and suction tubes to high-definition cameras, allowing them to uncover the improbable life found in some of the harshest conditions on Earth.
The ship's latest mission focuses on a seamount chain off Indonesia's Sulawesi island that scientists on board mapped last year.
A new team of Indonesian scientists is now surveying its biodiversity, including with submersible dives that put the researchers right into the environment they are studying.
As the sub dropped below 200 metres, the last traces of light disappeared, and indigo faded into total darkness.
Husna Nugrahapraja, an Indonesian scientist on the mission, admitted feeling "a little bit nervous and anxious" as he descended on his first submersible trip.
It is a "very lonely" environment at first, the assistant professor at Institut Teknologi Bandung told AFP.
The craft's lights offered the only illumination, revealing drifts of "marine snow" -- a shower of debris, including decomposing animals, that falls continuously into the depths and creates the impression of an old television stuck between stations.
Marine life that most people never see floated into view, including delicate comb jellies with pulsing fairy-light illuminations along their sides.
Siphonophores -- largely translucent creatures in fanciful shapes resembling toddlers' drawings -- glowed as they drifted by, and silver, fingernail-sized fish skittered out of the sub's wake.
Finally, Husna said, "we arrive on the sea bed... (where) we can see many unique organisms", from delicate sea stars to fronded soft corals.
- 'Quite different' -
OceanXplorer's Neptune submersible is designed for scientific collection and observation, while its Nadir vessel has high-end cameras and lights for media content.
That reflects OceanX's view that compelling images make research more accessible and impactful.
The subs do not go as deep as an ROV, but offer a unique view, explained Dave Pollock, who heads OceanX's submersible team.
"We get a lot of scientists come on who are very sceptical about subs," he told AFP.
"Pretty much without fail every sceptical scientist that comes on board who gets to go on a dive changes their opinion."
The nearly 360-degree view gives them "a totally different perspective" to the flat video fed up to the ship by the ROV.
"It's quite different when you see it yourself," Husna said.
The submersibles also offer unique experiences, including the flashes of light called bioluminescence that many deep-sea animals produce to communicate, for defence, or to attract mates.
The vessel's powerful light beams can be used to elicit the display.
First, all the lights are switched off. Even the internal control board is covered, plunging the craft's occupants into total darkness.
Then the sub flashes its lights several times while those on board close their eyes.
When they open them, a seascape galaxy of stars appears -- the bluish-white flashes of creatures from plankton and jellyfish to shrimp and fish responding to the sub lights.
Pollock, who has spent hundreds of hours diving in submersibles, counts some of the more spectacular "flashback bioluminescence" events as among the most memorable moments in his career.
Submersibles are used in many fields, but many now associate them with the 2023 underwater implosion of the Titan, which killed five people on a trip to explore the Titanic wreck.
Pollock stressed that, unlike Titan, OceanXplorer's vehicles are designed, manufactured and inspected regularly in accordance with industry body DNV.
"The subs are designed safe" and equipped with back-up systems including four days of emergency life support, he said.
- 'So little we know' -
For deeper exploration, the scientists rely on OceanX's ROV, operated from a futuristic-looking "mission control" where two crew members sit in gamer-style armchairs.
A bank of screens shows the largely barren seabed, as an operator uses a multi-jointed joystick to operate the robot's hydraulic arm from thousands of metres above.
It resembles a space mission, with an intrepid rover traversing desolate distant terrain. But here there are aliens.
At least that is how some of the species encountered appear to the untrained eye.
There's a bone-white lobster, suctioned up for examination at the surface, and a horned sea cucumber whose mast-like spikes collapse into black spaghetti when it arrives on the ship.
And there's a deep-sea hermit crab, living not inside a shell, but a sea star the team can't immediately identify. The crab has laid lurid orange eggs inside its long-dead host.
Not every collection is a success: a delicate red-orange shrimp daintily eludes the suction tube, swirling its long antenna as it swims almost triumphantly beyond reach.
When the ROV returns, there is an excited dash for the samples including seawater, sediment and a forearm-length sea lily coated with dripping orange goo.
Crustacean specialist Pipit Pitriana from Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency is fascinated by the captured lobster, as well as some pearl-sized barnacles she thinks may be new to science.
Large parts of the ocean, particularly the deep sea floor, are not even mapped, let alone explored.
And while a new treaty to protect international waters entered into force this month, the ocean faces threats from plastic pollution and rising temperatures to acidification.
"Our Earth, our sea, is mostly deep sea," Pipit said.
"But... there is so little we know about the biodiversity of the deep sea."
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