Akademik Mstislav Keldysh

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The R/V Akademik Mstislav Keldysh (Russian: Академик Мстислав Келдыш) is a 6,240 ton Russian scientific research vessel. It is best known as the support vessel of the MIR submersibles. The ship has made over 50 voyages. The ship is owned and operated by the Moscow-based Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Science and is homeported in Kaliningrad. The ship is named after the Soviet mathematician Mstislav Keldysh.

It has 17 laboratories and a library. It usually has 90 people onboard (45 crew members, 20 or more pilots, engineers and technicians, 10 to 12 scientists and about 12 passengers). It has a maximum speed of 12.5 knots although normal is 10.5. Its length is 122.2m, width is 17.8m. It was built in Rauma, Finland in 1981 by Hollming OY. It was first launched in 1981 in the USSR.

Among recent voyages, the Keldysh has made expeditions to two famous wrecks, the British liner Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck. Filmmaker James Cameron led two of those expeditions: To Titanic in 2001, leaving Kaliningrad a month before the September 11 attacks (Ghosts of the Abyss) then to Bismarck in 2002 (Expedition: Bismarck).