The vessel is owned by the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, and is homeported in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.

Named after the Soviet mathematician Mstislav Keldysh, it usually has 90 people on board (45 crew members, 20 or more pilots, engineers and technicians, 10 to 12 scientists and about 12 passengers).

Keldysh was involved in the search for Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets, lost off the northeastern coast of Norway in 1989 after fire broke out on board.

Concern over the potential effects of the high-energy nuclear material on the rich fishing areas in which it lay prompted an effort to locate the sub's wreckage and ascertain its condition.

Two months after the sinking, Keldysh located the wreckage of K-278 in June 1989 and Soviet governmental representatives labeled the risk of leaks to be "insignificant".