Terra-3
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Terra-3 (
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
: терра–3) was a Soviet
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...
testing centre, located on the
Sary Shagan Sary Shagan ( rus, Сары-Шаган; kz, Сарышаған) is an anti-ballistic missile testing range located in Kazakhstan. On 17 August 1956 the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union authorized plans for an experimental facility for ...
anti-ballistic missile An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to counter ballistic missiles (missile defense). Ballistic missiles are used to deliver nuclear weapon, nuclear, Chemical weapon, chemical, Bioagent, biological, or conventiona ...
(ABM) testing range in the
Karaganda Region Karaganda Region ( kk, Qarağandy oblysy; russian: Карагандинская область, translit=Karagandinskaja oblast′), also spelled Qaraghandy Region, is a region of Kazakhstan. Its capital is Karaganda. On 17 March 2022 it was an ...
of
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
. It was originally built to test
missile defense Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), ...
concepts, but these attempts were dropped after the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty or ABMT) (1972–2002) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ballis ...
was signed. The site later hosted two modest devices used primarily for experiments in space tracking. Several other laser test sites were also active during this period. During the 1980s, officials within the
United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...
(DoD) suggested it was the site of a prototypical
anti-satellite weapon 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 ...
system."Soviets could have laser able to blind US satellites"
''Gadsden Times'', 10 April 1984
The site was abandoned and is now partially disassembled.


History

Development of
laser weapons A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...
in the
Soviet Union 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 national ...
began in 1964–1965. Among many proposals for laser weapons was an explosively pumped
gas dynamic laser A gas dynamic laser (GDL) is a laser based on differences in relaxation velocities of molecular vibrational states. The lasing medium gas has such properties that an energetically lower vibrational state relaxes faster than a higher vibrational st ...
. Construction—consisting of a large concrete bunker lined with steel plates—was begun at Sary Shagan, but the facility was far from complete when the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty or ABMT) (1972–2002) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ballis ...
was signed in 1972, and these efforts ended. The buildings were then re-purposed for more modest laser systems.
Vympel NPO Vympel NPO is a Russian research and production company based near Moscow, mostly known for their air-to-air missiles. Other projects include SAM and ABM defenses. It was started in the Soviet era as an OKB (experimental design bureau). Histo ...
led the construction and developed the tracking and aiming systems. The lasers were developed at Astrofizika, a company newly formed from the laser departments of several defense contractors. They installed two lasers at the site, a visible-light
ruby laser A ruby laser is a solid-state laser that uses a synthetic ruby crystal as its gain medium. The first working laser was a ruby laser made by Theodore H. "Ted" Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories on May 16, 1960. Ruby lasers produce pulses of c ...
that was installed in 1979, and an
infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
carbon dioxide laser The carbon-dioxide laser (CO2 laser) was one of the earliest gas lasers to be developed. It was invented by Kumar Patel of Bell Labs in 1964 and is still one of the most useful types of laser. Carbon-dioxide lasers are the highest-power continuou ...
that was installed in 1982. Tracking systems were tested by fitting aircraft with laser detectors and then looking for signals when the lasers fired. There were also tests against satellites that passed over the site, in an effort to demonstrate the ability to blind optical sensors. Instead, these experiments demonstrated the inability of the tracking system to point the lasers with the required level of accuracy in order to be effective.


Anti-satellite weapon claims

With the development of the
Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the "''Star Wars'' program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballistic ...
(SDI) in the early 1980s, the DoD began claiming that the Soviets were developing an anti-satellite laser weapons system at the Sary Shagan site. These statements were part of an argument suggesting that a sort of "laser gap" existed between the US and the USSR, harkening back to the mythical
bomber gap The bomber gap was the Cold War belief that the Soviet Union's Long Range Aviation department had gained an advantage in deploying jet-powered strategic bombers. Widely accepted for several years, the gap was used as a political talking point in th ...
and
missile gap In the United States, during the Cold War, the missile gap was the perceived superiority of the number and power of the USSR's missiles in comparison with those of the U.S. (a lack of military parity). The gap in the ballistic missile arsenals di ...
of previous decades. As it would turn out, this comparison was quite accurate, as the laser gap turned out to be equally mythical. Throughout, the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA) was returning reports on the site that were quite accurate, and at odds with the DoD's public statements. The DoD presented only the worst-case assessments found in the public portions of the CIA's reports. With the ending of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, a delegation of US officials and experts were able to visit the site in July 1989. These observers noted a wide variety of evidence that the system—while intended to research the possibility of an anti-satellite laser capability—had never reached anywhere near the operational stage. The laser viewed by the US officials was extremely low-power, including the small size of the focusing optics and the uncooled director which would be incapable of handling a large laser. The lasers that they found were 1,000 times less powerful that the US's own
MIRACL MIRACL, or Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser, is a directed energy weapon developed by the US Navy. It is a deuterium fluoride laser, a type of chemical laser. The MIRACL laser first became operational in 1980. It can produce over a megawatt ...
. The team dismissed the site as non-operational. When discussing the issue, Soviet officials were somewhat amused. They noted that the US public often had better information than their own military, and that excessive secrecy had led the Soviet citizenry to distrust the military's claims as to their own capabilities.


Shuttle attack rumor

Terra-3 is the topic of a widespread claim that the IR laser was used to target the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' during its 6th orbital mission on 10 October 1984 (
STS-41-G STS-41-G (formerly STS-17) was the 13th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the sixth flight of Space Shuttle ''Challenger''. ''Challenger'' launched on October 5, 1984, and conducted the second shuttle landing at Kennedy Space Center o ...
). According to reports by Steven Zaloga, the Shuttle was briefly illuminated and caused "malfunctions on the space shuttle and distress to the crew," causing the United States to file a diplomatic protest about the incident. This claim appears to have started with former Soviet officials, notably Boris Kononenko. The crew members and "knowledgeable members of the US intelligence community" have denied that the shuttle was illuminated by the Terra-3."STS-41-G"
, Encyclopedia Astronautica


See also

*
Omega (laser) Omega (Russian: омега) (1965-) was a Soviet program for developing high-power laser weapons for air defense purposes, similar to the Terra-3 laser. The scientific director of the Omega program was A. M. Prokhorov. Practical work was carrie ...


References

{{Military testing centers in Kazakhstan Missile defense Space weapons Military lasers Science and technology in the Soviet Union Military installations of the Soviet Union