ST. PETERSBURG, January 11. /TASS/. The North Pole ice-resistant self-propelled platform, which is being built at the Admiralty Shipyard in St. Petersburg, will depart for the first Arctic expedition in September. The short expedition will test the platform, Minister of Natural Resources Alexander Kozlov told reporters on Tuesday.

"We plan the first expedition for September," he said. "It will be short, we must test the platform, and in 2023 we plan already a two-year expedition, to which we will invite international experts."

The Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI, St. Petersburg) has been negotiating foreign laboratories, including German ones, the minister added. The first expedition’s financing has been planned - the Russian government has taken a respective decision, he said.

The platform is ready by 90%. The Admiralty Shipyard says the launch is planned for July. Presently, the builders finalize onboard cabins and laboratories. The platform’s term according to the documents is 25 years, the minister continued. However, platforms of this kind normally work successfully for about 40 years.

The platform’s Captain Sergei Nesterov was presented on Tuesday. He has been the captain of passenger vessels, which made 25 voyages to the Antarctic and 13 voyages to the Arctic. According to the Admiralty Shipyard’s Director General Alexander Buzakov, the platform will have 14 crew members.

About platform

The national hydrometeorology service, Roshydromet, and the Admiralty Shipyard inked an agreement on the North Pole platform in spring, 2018. By using the platform, Russia will resume the practice of the North Pole year-long drifting expeditions, which was terminated due to the climate changes in the early 2000s.

The platform is 83 meters long, its breadth is about 22 meters, and it is more than 11 meters high. The vessel’s hull can resist the compression of long-term ice, which has been confirmed in model experiments in the ice pool. Expedition members - 34 researchers and 14 crew members - will have comfortable and safe working and living conditions onboard. In addition, one of the decks will have a runway for Mil Mi-8 and Mi-38 helicopters.

The ice-resistant platform will accommodate onboard 15 scientific laboratories, which cover an exhaustive range of the Arctic natural environment: ionospheric observations, geological, chemical, and environmental studies, studies of ice loads and the mechanics of ice destruction, studies of acoustic tomography of the Arctic basin, studies of the planetary boundary layer and the free atmosphere, magnetic and gravitational studies, and much more.