Balzam-class intelligence ship
The Balzam class, Soviet designation Project 1826 is a class of intelligence collection ships built in the Soviet Union for the Soviet Navy during the 1980s. They are also known as Lira class, after the first vessel of the class.
A starboard view of the Soviet Balzam-class general intelligence collector ship underway in international waters as United States Navy ships sail out from Norfolk, Virginia, at the beginning of NATO Exercise Ocean Safari '85.
A spy ship or reconnaissance vessel is a dedicated ship intended to gather intelligence, usually by means of sophisticated electronic eavesdropping. In a wider sense, any ship intended to gather information could be considered a spy ship.
USS Liberty, a "technical research ship", in 1967
Oker, an Oste-class ELINT and reconnaissance ship, of the German Navy
While USNS Vanguard was not strictly a spy ship, being used for space tracking, there is some overlap between her capabilities and those of a spy ship.