High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! USNS Mizar (MA-48/T-AGOR-11/T-AK-272) was a vessel of the United States Navy. She was named after the star, Mizar. Mizar was built as a small ice-strengthened cargo ship of the Eltanin class on a Maritime Administration type (C1-ME2-13a) hull, by Avondale Marine Ways, Inc. from January 1957. She entered service on March 7, 1958 and served as part of the Military Sea Transportation Service, working around Canada and Greenland, with a single voyage to Antarctica in 1961. In 1963 she was chosen for a major conversion. On April 15, 1964 she was reclassifed AGOR-11, designed for deep oceanographic search and research and fitted with a deepsea probe, equipped with strobe lights, cameras, sonar, and magnetometer. She was then operated by the MSTS under the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington. Her major tasks were ocean floor study and service as a floating base for underwater acoustic, chemical, and biological research.