On March 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, JSC Admiralty Shipyards (as part of JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation - USC) hosted the official ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the Sergey Bavilin autonomous deep-sea vehicle under construction of project 18200 (code "Voskhod"), designed by JSC SPMBM Malachite USC. The construction of the device has been underway since 2022 and its durable titanium alloy body is already ready.
The mortgage board of the autonomous deep-sea vehicle "Sergey Bavilin" of project 18200 (code "Voskhod"), laid down at JSC Admiralty Shipyards (as part of JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation) in St. Petersburg, 03/27/2024 (c) forums.airbase.ru
The USC press release says:
"The deep-sea vehicle is unique in its class - only vehicles of this class allow diving to significant depths for studying, mastering and performing specific work in the bottom space of the World Ocean. Already at the design stage, the St. Petersburg Marine Engineering Bureau Malachite made a major breakthrough into the future. The reserve of existing developments has been used and, at the same time, new design solutions that have no analogues in the world have been applied," said Vice Admiral Vladimir Grishechkin, Head of the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, at the laying ceremony.
As Andrey Bystrov, Acting Director General of Admiralty Shipyards, noted, the company already has experience in building such ships. Among them are autonomous deep-sea vehicles "Rus", "Consul", "Bester", "Search-6" and others. The plant has well-established technologies, competencies and confidence that the construction of a new autonomous deep-sea vehicle will be successful.
The autonomous deep-sea vehicle of the project 18200 "Sergey Bavilin" is a unique deep-sea technical means, which, thanks to its combined characteristics, is able to solve a wide range of tasks at depths up to the limit.
The device is designed to perform scientific research, historical and archaeological, emergency rescue and environmental monitoring of the World Ocean. Its functionality includes studying benthos and ichthyofauna, shooting production and popular science films.
The deep-sea vehicle received its name in honor of the talented shipbuilder, chief designer of deep-sea technical equipment "Malachite" Sergey Mikhailovich Bavilin.
On the part of bmpd, we would like to point out that the Admiralty Shipyards received a contract from the Russian Ministry of Defense for the construction of an autonomous deep-sea vehicle of the 18200 project in December 2019. The annual reports of SPMBM Malachite for 2020 and 2021 reported on the development of projects for a "unique ultra-deep-sea habitable complex with an apparatus capable of diving and operating at depths up to 11 thousand meters." The creation of projects for an autonomous ultra-deep-sea apparatus and complex was carried out within the framework of the Voskhod and Gravitation experimental design works (R&D).
In December 2023, Alexey Oryshchenko, General Director of the Central Research Institute of Structural Materials Prometheus of the National Research Center Kurchatov Institute (SIC Kurchatov Institute - Central Research Institute KM Prometheus), announced that the institute had completed the development of a titanium alloy for a manned deep-sea vehicle capable of sinking to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. "New titanium alloys have been developed, which today allow us to dive 11 km. The materials have already been developed, have passed a full large-scale inspection, that is, all the tests. (...) All the legislators that exist have all had a hand in this. We hope that this device, the Voskhod project, will be submerged in two years," Oryshchenko said.
The deep-sea vehicle should be operated by the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research (GUGI) of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Presumably, the carrier of the device should be the oceanographic research vessel "Vice Admiral Burilichev" of project 22011, which was laid down on February 6, 2021 in Vyborg at PJSC Vyborg Shipyard (as part of the USC).
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The ceremony of the official laying of the autonomous deep-sea vehicle "Sergey Bavilin" project 18200 (code "Voskhod") at JSC Admiralty Shipyards (as part of JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation) in St. Petersburg, 03/27/2024 (c) USC and forums.airbase.ru