MOSCOW, November 30 (AVN) - The scheme of the Project 949 Kursk submarine lifting is to be approved in December this year, Ilya Klebanov, deputy prime minister and chairman of the government commission for investigation into the Kursk disaster, told the Military News Agency on Thursday.
According to Klebanov, only two schemes have been chosen out of some 500 submitted by Russian and foreign organisations and individuals. The scheme to be approved has to meet the following requirements. It must be cost-efficient, should envisage use of the lifting equipment at hand and rapid development of new means.
Klebanov said that special grip means have to be developed and that Russian designers and producers have already been tasked to do so.
He stressed that the consortium to perform the lifting operation includes the Rubin central design bureau for marine engineering, a leading Russian naval company headed by Academician Igor Spassky.
The Kursk sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000.