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Russian Facilities

SOVIET MILITARY SPACE ACTIVITIES

By Charles S. Sheldon II*

GROUND BASED SPACE DETECTION AND DEFENSE SYSTEMS

1971-1975

When space-based inspection systems either do not exist or fall short in some fashion of meeting all needs, ground based systems are the alternatives. The United States not only has tracking systems for its own spacecraft, but has acknowledged a variety of other sensors which more generally keep track of what is in orbit. One system is that established by the Navy as SPASUE, also called the Dark Fence. It was strung in a line at a fixed latitude across the tier of southern States from Georgia to California . Several radio stations send out a fan shaped signal in CW (continuous wave) which then would be reflected back to Earth by any satellite, no matter how uncooperative, passing through the fan. Radio receiving stations are also spaced along the same latitude. By sending any reflected signals to a computer at Dahlgren Virginia , it calculates the location of the passing satellite, and adds the data to its memory bank. Successive passes through the fan establish the presumed orbit of the satellite. The computer remembers what should be coming through the fan, and any new object or any object displaced from its estimated path sounds an alarm and is a signal to analysts to gather more data until the unexplained "blip” can be accounted for.

A second method for finding uncooperative satellites is through radar, such as the ones already described as making up the BMEWS system. In addition to those three there are other radars intended specifically to keep track of space objects. The exact number and location of such is not in the public domain. One is clearly visible to motorists on the New Jersey Turn Pike because of its large radome near Morristown Others are known to be on Shemya in the Aleutian Islands , and in Trinidad . At Eglin Air Force Base in Florida is a large phased array radar which uses electronic rather than mechanical scanning of the sky. Especially since the 1975 difficulties with Turkey , public attention has been drawn to the U.S. radars in that country which could watch some Soviet launchings. The British have a large station at Malvem in England . A good radar not only can observe blips, but with some discrimination and good computer support can reach conclusions about the shape and dimensions of space objects, although presumably the answers are not definitive when some radar absorbing materials might make an object seem smaller than it really is, and adding comer reflectors might make it seem larger.

A third approach is through optical devices. Tracking cameras of high sensitivity and wide fields of vision were introduced in some instances fairly early in the U.S. program. These capabilities have been enhanced over the years at Cloudcroft , New Mexico , and in Hawaii to get enough resolution to see something of the target satellite.

Since all of these U.S. systems have had repeated publicity, and Soviet needs are similar, one can assume they have examined all these techniques. We know they follow their own space probes to distances as great as 250,000 kilometers and more through use of electronic enhancement of optical signals. We also know they have long been active in development and deployment of radars. Their purported state of development was described in detail by a pair of articles in Aviation Week. (15) This study reflects a high level of Soviet technology. There is even less information in the public domain about the location of its space surveillance radars than about corresponding U.S. stations. In the early days, the Soviet Union encouraged people to send in reports on satellite sightings to a central point in Moscow . They published statistical tables on sightings, and these covered not only Soviet satellites, but some U.S. ones as well. Most of the early equipment pictured was relatively simple, but they had a few models that in their pictures resembled the Baker-Nunn cameras of high capability used in the United States . Most of their optical findings went into studies on atmospheric drag and irregularities in the gravity pull of Earth.

It is also known that the Russians have an optical tracking station in Cuba, and this would serve not only scientific purposes, but could be used to keep track of some U.S. space activities. Launches both at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg have been monitored by Soviet ships.

A capability to operate an ABM (antiballistic missile) system implies a good tracking system. The Russians have deployed the Galosh ABM system around Moscow , and presumably they keep it exercised by passing spacecraft, including designed calibration pay- loads; Such a system typically incorporates a wide area search or early warning system as well as terminal guidance needed for intercept. If the Russians are capable of finding large numbers of incoming missiles and intercepting them outside the atmosphere, then they almost surely have the same capability for picking off at least the low-flying space payloads.

Presumably some similar capability resides in the U.S. ABM system which protects some of our Minuteman sites in North Dakota . But the United States also has had two other space defense sites in the past. One was based on Johnston Island , and the other at Kwajalein Island , both in the Pacific. These sites like any fixed ground site can operate only when the passing satellite is within the range of the particular intercepting missile available to the defender. This means that only on certain orbits would it be possible to pick off a satellite selected for destruction. Khrushchev once said that the Russians were capable of hitting a fly in outer space. While these were figurative terms, he probably was talking about the ability of the Galosh system to hit either a missile warhead or a satellite.

Congressional testimony of the U.S. Department of Defense indicates the Russians have a large missile (and space) defense development center at Sary Shagan. Missiles launched from some other site such at Kapustin Yar can be picked up by the radars and the intercepting missiles of Sary Shagan. This flight range was identified by Aviation Week in the mid-1950's, so has long been known. (16)

To date, there is no known record of a Soviet inspector satellite flying a co-orbit with a United States payload, and there is no known case of a ground-based Soviet rocket interceptor being used against a United States payload. In similar fashion, there is no evidence of U.S. interference with a. Soviet payload by co-orbit or by ground based rocket interception.

Aviation Week in late 1975 broke a story that the Russians were suspected of using laser weapons to blind the infrared (IR) sensors in U.S. early warning satellites. According to the story which had origins in the Pentagon, the sensors were not permanently blinded, but for periods of time up to four hours were neutralized. This happened from October 18 on three times to 24-hour synchronous satellites and twice to 12-hour semi-synchronous satellites. The story said the intensity of the phenomenon was from 10 to 1,000 times that of a forest fire or volcano, and that no weather satellite had found any natural source for these events. The frequency of the signal was like that to be expected of a hydrogen-fluorine laser. The signals had come from the western part of the U.S.S.R. The suggestion was that if the source was from lasers, then the intensity that might be expected if used against low-flying U.S. missions would reach levels 50,000 times as high. The United States since the early 1960's has probed Soviet satellites with lasers from Maui, Hawaii, and Cloudcroft, New Mexico, to determine lens and film types used in Soviet photographic missions, but not in a manner to cause deliberate damage to such Soviet satellites. (17)

This suspicion, if borne out, would have been of enormous consequence to detente, the SALT talks, and the military positions of the two countries, so naturally raised many public questions. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld responded to these, saying that investigations were continuing, but that the preliminary findings were that major gas pipeline explosions had caused these signals. He said known explosions and fires from over-pressurizing a major gas line correlated well with the satellite data, and he reviewed the U.S. use of laser probing of Soviet satellites.

It may be too early to close the book on these incidents, because it seems strange that gas fires which have been observed many times before have not previously had this same effect on satellites. If it was the intensity of these particular fires, then this experience may help to calibrate and interpret future signals received by satellites in what is clearly an evolving technology. (18)

References:

A. SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMS, 1971-75, OVERVIEW, FACILITIES AND HARDWARE MANNED AND UNMANNED FLIGHT PROGRAMS, BIOASTRONAUTICS CIVIL AND MILITARY APPLICATIONS PROJECTIONS OF FUTURE PLANS, STAFF REPORT , THE COMMITTEE ON AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE .SCIENCES, UNITED STATES SENATE, BY THE SCIENCE POLICY RESEARCH DIVISION CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, VOLUME – I, AUGUST 30, 1976, GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON : 1976,

15. Miller, Barry, Soviet radar expertise expands. Aviation Week, New York , February, 15, 1971 , pp. 14-16:————. Soviet radars disclose clues to doctrine, Aviation Week, February 22, 1971 , pp. 42-50.

16. See Aviation Week, New York , November 25, 1974 , pp. 20-21, for Landsat picture of Sary Shagan.

17. Aviation Week, New York , December 8, 1975 , p. 12 ff.

18. Aviation Week, New York , January 5, 1976 , p. 18.

* Dr. Sheldon, is Chief, Science Policy Research Division, Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress.

SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMS: 1976-80,

Abstract

OVERVIEW, SUPPORTING FACILITIES AND LAUNCH

VEHICLES OF THE SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM

OVERALL TRENDS IN FLIGHTS

1976-1980

Statistics on space activities are only approximate and are subject to revision, but enough data are available to afford a reasonably good overview of rates of relative progress among nations.

Although the U.S. launch pace declined still further from 1976, the Soviet record shows no similar drop, peaking at 99 in 1976 and now running at about seven times the current U.S. level. While the U.S. record of success and failure in flight is fairly well known, the Soviet Union continues to hide most of its failures, and these can only be estimated as probably proportional to the number of successes in the same ratio as applies to the U.S. space record.

Despite the Soviet and American secrecy in hiding the missions of military space flights which overall make up a majority of launches, in both cases it is possible from open sources to deduce these missions. The largest single component in the Soviet programs still those flights which have a recoverable payload from low Earth orbit, presumably flown for observation purposes where as, with the introduction of longer lived satellites with direct transmission of imagery from orbit, civilian communications satellites provide the largest single component for the United States. Examination of 25 program elements shows that both the U.S. and Soviet programs are broadly based, seeking multiple goals, with the primary difference being the Soviet inclusion of satellite inspector/destructor flights (ASATs). These flights were reintroduced in 1976 and have no U.S. counterparts.

In the absence of published data, only estimates can be made of the comparative weights of payload and the launch capacity of the rockets used have been normalized to nominal low Earth orbit equivalents. These show the Soviet Union cumulatively has launched about 90 percent more tonnage than the United States, and is currently running about nine fold the U.S. level. The inauguration of the operational phase of the Space Shuttle should go some way toward redressing the disparity.

SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMS: 1976-80,

SUPPORTING FACILITIES AND LAUNCH VEHICLES, POLITICAL GOALS AND PURPOSES, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN SPACE, ADMINISTRATION, RESOURCE BURDEN, FUTURE OUTLOOK PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF HON. BOB PACKWOOD, Chairman, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, UNITED STATES SENATE, Part 1, Dec. 1982.