The 821st Main Centre for Reconnaissance of Situation in Space ( rus, Главный центр разведки космической обстановки, GTsRKO
) is the headquarters of the Russian military's
space surveillance
Space domain awareness is the study and monitoring of satellites orbiting the earth. It involves the detection, tracking, cataloging and identification of artificial objects, i.e. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentatio ...
network, SKKP. The centre is part of the
Russian Space Forces
The Russian Space Forces ( rus, Космические войска России, Kosmicheskie voyska Rossii, KV) are a branch of the Russian Aerospace Forces, that provides aerospace warning, air and space sovereignty, and other related protect ...
and receives intelligence from a network of reporting stations which includes the
Russian missile attack early warning network as well as some stations only used for space surveillance such as
Okno
Okno ( rus, Окно meaning window) is a Russian space surveillance station located in Nurak in Tajikistan. It is run by the Russian Space Forces and is part of the Centre for Outer Space Monitoring. It is located above sea level in the Sanglok ...
and
Krona.
The purpose of the SKKP is to detect satellites, identify them and to discern their orbits. It maintains the Russian catalogue of space objects and provides data which could be used to support space launches, feed an
anti-satellite
Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) are space weapons designed to incapacitate or destroy satellites for strategic or tactical
purposes. Several nations possess operational ASAT systems. Although no ASAT system has been utilised in warfare, a few ...
programme and provide intelligence on hostile military satellites. It is the Russian equivalent of the
United States Space Surveillance Network
The United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) detects, tracks, catalogs and identifies artificial objects orbiting Earth, e.g. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentation debris. The system is the responsibility of Uni ...
.
History
![Sary-Shagan Dnestr radar (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Sary-Shagan_Dnestr_radar_%28cropped%29.jpg)
The centre is based in the military village of Noginsk-9 ( rus, Ногинск-9) about a kilometer to the south-west of the village of
Dubrovo near
Noginsk
Noginsk (russian: Ноги́нск) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Noginsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia, located east of the Moscow Ring Road on the Klyazma River. Population:
History
Fo ...
in
Moscow Oblast
Moscow Oblast ( rus, Моско́вская о́бласть, r=Moskovskaya oblast', p=mɐˈskofskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ), or Podmoskovye ( rus, Подмоско́вье, p=pədmɐˈskovʲjə, literally "under Moscow"), is a federal subject of Rus ...
.
[ It was previously known as TsKKP (Цккп) from rus, Центр контроля космического пространства, Tsentr kontrolya kosmicheskogo prostranstva meaning 'centre for space monitoring'.][
The idea of a space monitoring system originated in 1963 and the design was agreed upon in 1965. From the beginning it included civilian astronomical stations run by 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 system needed to detect, identify and track satellites and create a satellite catalogue. The first satellite detection system consisted of eight Dnestr radar
Dnestr radar (russian: Днестр) and Dnepr radar (russian: Днепр), both known by the NATO reporting name Hen House are the first generation of Soviet space surveillance and early warning radars. Six radars of this type were built around ...
s, four at Mishelevka in Siberia and four at Balkhash in the Kazakh SSR which provided information for the Istrebitel Sputnikov
Istrebitel Sputnikov, or IS (russian: Истребитель спутников, ИС, meaning "destroyer of satellites"Not to be confounded with "sputnik-istrebitel" ("спутник-истребитель"), "fighter satellite".), was a Soviet ...
anti-satellite system.
Construction on the centre began in 1965 and in 1968 a 5E51 computer was installed. The first part of the centre was placed on alert in 1970 and became operational in 1972, as part of the Soviet Air Defences.
In 1974 plans to link up the space surveillance centre with the missile warning centre and missile defence radars were realised. There were several problems with this. One significant issue was that they used different co-ordinate systems. A drawback of linking the early warning radars to the space surveillance centre was that it caused data on thousands of routine objects to be sent to the centre, overwhelming it with data.
To counter this, a programme called "Kosmos" was implemented. This programme asked the radar stations only to send information on requested objects and launches rather than everything they identified. One concern raised with "Kosmos" was that it took the radar stations two to three minutes to do this, which disrupted their tracking of ballistic missiles. It was important that the system concentrated on the military satellite
A military satellite is an artificial satellite used for a military purpose. The most common missions are intelligence gathering, navigation and military communications.
The first military satellites were photographic reconnaissance missions. So ...
s of hostile countries and filtered these out from the noise of the wider space environment.
The early warning radars could only cover satellites in low earth orbits. In the 1980s more US military satellites were placed in geosynchronous orbit
A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...
s. This required specialised equipment, such as Krona and Okno, which could analyse satellites at that height. In the late 1980s the centre received a new building housing an Elbrus
Mount Elbrus ( rus, links=no, Эльбрус, r=Elbrus, p=ɪlʲˈbrus; kbd, Ӏуащхьэмахуэ, 'uaşhəmaxuə; krc, Минги тау, Mingi Taw) is the highest and most prominent peak in Russia and Europe. It is situated in the we ...
-2 computer. Later a new network based on the Elbrus-90 Micro computer was installed.
The space monitoring centre was awarded the Soviet Minister of Defence Pennant for Courage and Military Valour
Pennant may refer to:
Flag or banner
* Pennon (or pennant), a narrow, tapering flag
** Commissioning pennant, the traditional sign of a warship, flown from its masthead while the ship is in commission
** Broad pennant, flown from the masthead ...
.
In 2003 a notification system for detecting "special spacecraft" passing over the country was implemented.
Catalogue
The centre maintains the Russian catalogue of space objects, similar to that of NORAD
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...
. The radar stations send the centre a six-dimensional vector
Vector most often refers to:
*Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction
*Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism
Vector may also refer to:
Mathematic ...
consisting of co-ordinates and velocities taken from the smoothing of discrete measurements. This data consists of range, azimuth
An azimuth (; from ar, اَلسُّمُوت, as-sumūt, the directions) is an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system. More specifically, it is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north.
Mathematicall ...
and elevation angle
In mathematics, a spherical coordinate system is a coordinate system for three-dimensional space where the position of a point is specified by three numbers: the ''radial distance'' of that point from a fixed origin, its ''polar angle'' measu ...
, and in addition some radars send radial velocity
The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity, also known as radial speed or range rate, of a target with respect to an observer is the temporal rate of change, rate of change of the distance or Slant range, range between the two points. It is e ...
.
The centre compares the measurements to the catalogue to see whether it is a known object. If not, additional data is collected to see if the signal represents a new orbit of a known object. If it is not then a new object is catalogued.
Structure
The space surveillance network was part of the Soviet Air Defence Forces
The Soviet Air Defence Forces (russian: войска ПВО, ''voyska protivovozdushnoy oborony'', ''voyska PVO'', ''V-PVO'', lit. ''Anti-Air Defence Troops''; and formerly ''protivovozdushnaya oborona strany'', ''PVO strany'', lit. ''Anti-Air De ...
(the Protivo-Vozdushnaya Oborona (PVO)), and was incorporated as part of the missile defence and space defence force. In 1998 SKKP became part of the missile and space defence organisation ''ракетно-космической обороны'' (RKO) together with missile warning network SPRN and the anti-missile forces. In 2001 these services became part of the newly founded Space Troops, and were incorporated as the 3rd Independent Missile and Space Defence Army.
The Main Centre for Reconnaissance of Situation in Space was formed on 1 December 2009 and since December 2011 it had been part of the Space Command of the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces, together with facilities such as the 820th Main Centre for Missile Attack Warning and 153rd Titov Main Space Testing Centre.
See also
* Joint CIS Air Defence System Joint CIS Air Defense System (russian: Объединённая система ПВО СНГ) is a unified system that comprises air defense units and elements of the former Soviet republics under control of the Coordination Committee on Air Defens ...
Notes
References
External links
Photo visit to Noginsk-9
Historical photograph of Noginsk-9 from Vympel
{{Use British English, date=January 2014
Military installations of Russia
Russian Space Forces
Soviet and Russian space program locations
Military installations of the Soviet Union
1971 establishments in Russia