''Kosmonavt Yuriy Gagarin'' (russian: «Космона́вт Ю́рий Гага́рин») was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

space control-monitoring ship or Vigilship (Veladora) that was devoted to detecting and receiving satellite communications. Named after

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

Yuri Gagarin Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space. Tr ...

, the ship was completed in December 1971 to support the

Soviet space program The Soviet space program (russian: Космическая программа СССР, Kosmicheskaya programma SSSR) was the national space program of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), active from 1955 until the dissoluti ...

. The ship also conducted

upper atmosphere Upper atmosphere is a collective term that refers to various layers of the atmosphere of the Earth above the troposphere and corresponding regions of the atmospheres of other planets, and includes: * The mesosphere, which on Earth lies between the ...

and

outer space Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...

research.Norman Polmar, Siegfried Breyer, ''Guide to the Soviet Navy'', Third Edition (1984), United States Naval Institute, Annapolis Maryland, It had very distinguishable looks due to two extremely large and two smaller parabolic "dish"

antennas In radio engineering, an antenna or aerial is the interface between radio waves propagating through space and electric currents moving in metal conductors, used with a transmitter or receiver. In transmission, a radio transmitter supplies a ...

placed on top of the hull. In 1986, ''Kosmonavt Yuriy Gagarin'' was the world's largest communications ship and was the flagship of a fleet of communications ships. These ships greatly extended the tracking range when the orbits of cosmonauts and unmanned missions were not over the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

.''Tracking sites and ships''
Komsmonavtka Website
Retrieved 6/13/2008 In 1975, the ship was a part of the Soviet-American

Apollo–Soyuz Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as a United States Apollo spacecraft docked ...

joint test program.''SP-4209 The Partnership: A History of the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project'', (U.S.) NASA
Online Article
/ref> The communications ships belonged to the

Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

. The maritime part fell under the responsibility of the Baltic- and Black sea shipping. The ships had home ports in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

(''Kosmonavt Yuriy Gagarin'' and the other surveillance ship ), so after the fall of the Soviet Union they were transferred to Ukraine – ending their role in spaceflight. The ship was sold for scrap shortly after the break-up of the Soviet Union along with ''Akademik Sergei Korolev''.

References

External links

* A. Karpenko, ''ABM and Space Defense'', Nevsky Bastion, No. 4, 1999, pp. 2–47
Federation of American Scientists (Online)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kosmonavt Yuriy Auxiliary ships of the Soviet Navy Maritime vessels related to spaceflight Ships of the Soviet space program Ships built in the Soviet Union Monuments and memorials to Yuri Gagarin Ships built at the Baltic Shipyard

See also

References

External links