 After 20 years of polar duties for BAS, "Ernest Shackleton" was returned to her owners on 30 April 2019.OGS (Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale) acquired the ship on 9 May 2019.They renamed her RV "Laura Bassi" in honour of the first woman to earn a professorship in physics at a university and the first woman in the world to be appointed a university chair in a scientific field of studies.