Around the world, the Titanic exhibit is a box office hit, while filling the coffers of RMS Titanic, Inc., the company that owns and manages the rights to the world’s most famous shipwreck.

See Related: Impressive, Realistic Titanic Exhibition in Paris – Feel Like You’re Jack and Rose (Video-Photos)

The company wants to land a new mission on the wreck of the sunken cruise ship to do further research (and possibly recover new objects), just two months after the tragedy with the submarine Titan off Canada, with its 5 passengers dead.

The RMST mission is scheduled for May 2024 but faces legal hurdles as it opposes a US federal law and an international agreement struck with Britain designating the wreck as a “sacred burial site” and a memorial to the more than 1,500 people who lost their lives in the icy waters of the Atlantic in 1912.

According to the AP, the US government argues that the mission could disturb fragile objects and any human remains that may still be on the wreck.

“RMST is not free to ignore this validly enacted federal law, yet that is its stated intent,” US attorneys argued in court papers filed Friday in US District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees the matters. saving the Titanic. They also added that the shipwreck, should the mission take place, “would be deprived of the protection afforded to it by Congress.”

For its part, the company assures that – at this stage – it does not intend to retrieve any part of the wreck and that it will “cooperate” with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US agency that represents public interest in the wreck. .

However, she made it clear that she does not intend to ask for permission to proceed with her mission.

“We will continue our work, respectfully preserving the memory and legacy of Titanic, her passengers and crew for future generations,” RMST said in a statement.