November-class submarine Komsomol" was first underway under nuclear power on 4 July 1958 and became also the first Soviet submarine to reach the North Pole in July 1962, 4 years after the USS "Nautilus". Project 627 had much better performance specifications (for example, submerged speed and depth) than the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine USS "Nautilus". The first commander of "K-3" was Captain 1st Rank L.G. Osipenko (future admiral and Hero of the Soviet Union). All other Novembers except "K-3" belonged to modified project – project 627A. The main visual differences of project 627A were a bow sonar dome in the keel
North Pole Herbert was the first person to reach the pole of inaccessibility. On 17 August 1977 the Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker "Arktika" completed the first surface vessel journey to the North Pole. In 1982 Ranulph Fiennes and Charles R. Burton became the first people to cross the Arctic Ocean in a single season. They departed from Cape Crozier, Ellesmere Island, on 17 February 1982 and arrived at the geographic North Pole on 10 April 1982. They travelled on foot and snowmobile. From the Pole, they travelled towards Svalbard but, due to the unstable nature of the ice, ended their crossing at the