ARKHANGELSK, July 26. /ITAR-TASS/. Advanced armament support ship Akademik Kovalev will be set afloat in northern Russian seaport of Severodvinsk on Saturday, a chief press officer of shipyard Zvezdochka told Itar-Tass.

The armament support ship “is planned to take tests of its equipment and take sea trials already in autumn,” Nadezhda Shcherbinina said. The new warship is expected to be brought into naval service already at the end of this year.

Akademik Kovalev is an ice reinforcement class ship with a total displacement of 6.3 thousand tonnes. It is 107.6 metres long, 17.8 metres wide and has 60-strong crew. The contract for its construction was signed in September 2011. The naval carrier project develops the design concept of sea-going rescue towboat Zvezdochka handed over in naval service in 2010.

Akademik Kovalev was named after famous submarine designer Academician Sergei Kovalev (1919-2011), who had headed central design bureau for marine engineering Rubin for more than a century. A total of 92 submarines were built in eight projects developed by the admiral.