The Second Soviet Antarctic Expedition was led by Aleksei Treshnikov on the continent; the marine expedition on the "Ob" was led by I. V. Maksimov. The "Ob" left Kaliningrad on 7 November, 1956.
Three ships were used to transport the expedition, all diesel-electric. The two main ships were as for the first expedition: RV Ob (flagship; captain I. A. Man) and RV "Lena" (captain A. I. Vetrov). The third ship was Kooperatsiya (captain A. S. Yantselevich), used mainly as a transport vessel.
The tasks of the expedition were:
- Relief of the first expedition
- Full scale scientific work for the International Geophysical Year (IGY)
- Organisation of two IGY scientific stations near the south geomagnetic pole and pole of relative inaccessibility
- An inland tractor-sledge traverse for glaciology
- Oceanography
References
2nd Soviet Antarctic Expedition Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA