Puerto Deseado was built by Astilleros Argentinos Río de la Plata (Astarsa) shipyard in Tigre, Buenos Aires and commissioned into the Argentine Navy in 1978.

On 2003 she participated on the unsuccessful attempt to find the sunken cruiser ARA General Belgrano along with a National Geographic team on the vessel Seacor Lenga.

[1][2] Puerto Deseado serves the CONICET, the Argentine government agency that directs and co-ordinates scientific and technical research.

[3] Her scientific equipment includes a gravimetric sensor, magnetometers, seismic systems, high frequency sound sonar and a geological laboratory.

[4] Since then, Puerto Deseado was involved in the investigation of the continental shelf of the Argentine Sea that was finally submitted on 22 April 2009 to the United Nations (UN) for 1,700,000 square kilometres (660,000 sq mi) of ocean territory to be recognised as Argentina's as governed by the Convention on the Continental Shelf and Convention on the Law of the Sea.