Planning of a German-built trade and research vessel to test the feasibility of nuclear power in civil service began in 1960 under the supervision of German physicist Erich Bagge.

Launched in 1964, her nuclear reactor was deactivated 15 years later in 1979 and replaced by a conventional diesel engine room.

She was launched in 1964 and named in honour of Professor Otto Hahn, the German chemist and Nobel Prize-winner, who discovered the nuclear fission of uranium in 1938.

The first captain of the Otto Hahn was Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, a German U-boat ace of World War II.

In October of that year, NS Otto Hahn was certified for commercial freight transport and research.

In nine years, she had travelled 650,000 nautical miles (1,200,000 km) on nuclear power, visiting 33 ports in 22 countries, most of them only once with special permissions.