On August 2, 2016 the research vessel Akademik Nikolaj Strakhov went on its first research voyage after the repatriation. It will be recalled that after two years of emergency anchorage in the port of Colombo (Sri Lanka) the vessel managed to return to the ranks due to the efforts of the Federal Agency of Scientific Organization and P.P.Shirshov Oceanology Institute.

In the voyage conducted by in the Russian, Polish, Danish, Lithuanian, and Swedish waters of the Baltic sea, integrated expedition research will be done.

Among the basic goals is search for potentially hazardous underwater objects in the buried chemical weapon material areas and targeted sampling of bottom sediments to analyze for chemical warfare agents. The monitoring of sunken chemical weapon material in the changing hydrological conditions of the Baltic will be performed within the framework of an international project "To the monitoring of the perils of sunken weapons" (head of the Russian part of the project Dr. Sci. in Physics and Mathematics, head of the laboratory of experimental hydrophysical studies of IO RAS Atlantic Section, head of the expeditionи V.T. Paka). Besides, the hydrologic characteristics of the Baltic sea basins after the “great inflow” of North Sea waters will be studied in detail. Special attention will be given to studying biological communities. In the course of the voyage about 2,000km of hydrophysical profiling with associated survey of relief and structure of bottom sediments, several dozens of stations for sampling water, bottom sediments, and biota will be performed.

Among the equipment used in the expedition there are devices both made abroad and designed and created in IO RAS Atlantic Section. The scientific group is presented by workers of IO RAS Atlantic Section. The expedition consist of three stages with partial replacement of researchers in Baltiysk and will last 45 days.