"Cosmonaut Vladislav Volkov" - a research vessel designed to collect telemetry information from spacecraft launched in the USSR, as well as to provide communication between ground-based flight control points with the crews of spacecraft and stations; until 1995, it carried the pennant of the USSR Academy of Sciences and was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense, and since 1995 - the Russian Space Agency. Named after cosmonaut Vladislav Nikolaevich Volkov, who died during the flight of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft.

From 1977 to 1991, the ship performed 14 expeditionary voyages in the Central and South Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the Indian Ocean. Its tasks included ensuring control of the Mission Control Center over critical operations carried out on manned orbital stations, control of the inclusion of rocket booster stages during launches of geostationary satellites and satellites with high elliptical orbits.