Krona-N ( rus, Радиолокационный комплекс "Крона-Н", Radiolokatsionny kompleks Krona-N) is a Russian military complex which uses

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...

to analyse

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

s and other spacecraft. It is located in

Nakhodka Nakhodka ( rus, Нахо́дка, p=nɐˈxotkə) is a port city in Primorsky Krai, Russia, located on the Trudny Peninsula jutting into the Nakhodka Bay of the Sea of Japan, about east of Vladivostok, the administrative center of the kra ...

in the

Russian Far East The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admin ...

and is part of the Centre for Outer Space Monitoring, the

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 Space debris, ...

section of the Russian Space Forces. Krona-N is the second Krona, the first Krona is in Zelenchukskaya in the North Caucasus.

History

Krona-N was mentioned in a 1980 report by Soviet military contractor

Vympel Directorate "V" of the FSB Special Purpose Center, often referred to as Spetsgruppa "V" Vympel ( pennant in Russian, originated from German , and having the same meaning), but also known as KGB Directorate "V", Vega Group, is an elite Russia ...

on the future development of the Soviet system of space monitoring and control. This report stated that the Krona in Zelenchukskaya should be completed and proposed the development of Krona-N in the far east, and a complex called Krona-V ( rus, Крона-В). Krona-V was to detect space craft in high Earth orbits, and Krona-N to detect craft in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...

s. Work on Krona-N stopped in the mid 1980s but restarted sometime later. In 2005 it was described as being under construction and in late 2007 the then Space Forces commander Vladimir Popovkin was quoted as saying it would be commissioned in 2008.

Facility

Krona complexes have been described as

counter-intelligence Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...

facilities which identify and study hostile military satellites. The first Krona in Zelechukskaya is on two sites with an optical telescope and a

LIDAR Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...

as well as two radars. Krona-N has no optical component, it is on one site and entirely radar based. In common with Krona in Zelechukskaya there are two radars on this site. The largest one, the tree-like antenna giving the facility its name,from the crown of a tree, ''krona dereva'' is a decimeter band (

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

)Russian sources describe this as being in UHF channel A

phased array In antenna theory, a phased array usually means an electronically scanned array, a computer-controlled array of antennas which creates a beam of radio waves that can be electronically steered to point in different directions without moving th ...

radar designed by

NIIDAR The NIIDAR company, the ''Scientific and Research Institute for Long-Distance Radio Communications'' (russian: Научно-исследовательский институт дальней радиосвязи) is a Russian manufacturer of radar ...

. The other radar, operating in the centimeter band ( SHF),Russian sources describe this as being in SHF channel N consists of 5 rotating parabolic dishes in a cross which work on the basis of

interferometry Interferometry is a technique which uses the '' interference'' of superimposed waves to extract information. Interferometry typically uses electromagnetic waves and is an important investigative technique in the fields of astronomy, fiber o ...

. Krona-N has

GRAU index The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (), commonly referred to by its transliterated Russian acronym GRAU (), is a department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is subordinate to the ...

40Zh6 ( rus, 40Ж6) and the military unit is number 29982. The town is called Fokino-1 ( rus, Фокино-1) after the nearest settlement, the closed naval town of Fokino.

Notes

References

External links

Photo of Krona_N from Vympel
{{Soviet Radar Russian Space Forces Military installations of Russia