Kapustin Yar
48.4 N 45.8 E
Overview, Supporting Facilities and Launch Vehicles of the
Soviet Space Program *
1976-1980
1. Prepared by the late Charles S. Sheldon II and Geoffrey E. Perry M.B.E. Dr. Sheldon was the Senior Specialist in Space and Transportation Technology, Mr. Perry is a Senior Teacher at Kettering Boys School, England, and the leader of the Kettering Group of amateur satellite observers.
KAPUSTIN YAR
The third Soviet launch site is near Kapustin Yar on the Volga River below the city of Volgograd at about 48.4 N. latitude, 45.8 E. longitude, also in European Russia. Indirectly the site has been finally acknowledged by the Soviet Government, as some suborbital launches in the Vertikal series are referred to as coming from the Volgograd Station" or, less precisely, "from the middle latitudes of the European part of the U.S.S.R." (20) The area has been used for a long time as a rocket test station. In the middle 1950's before the first Sputnik, Aviation Week magazine revealed the United States had a radar station in Turkey which used radar to follow missile and test rocket firings from this point. (21) Magazines of the period said that Soviet short and medium range missiles were launched southeastward from there toward the Kyzylkum Desert near the Aral Sea as the principal test range. In fact, this launch site was so well known that for several years after 1957, the American press assumed that it was used for the launch of the early Sputniks and Luna flights when in fact they came from the Tyuratam ICBM test center.
It was not until 1962 that payloads were placed in orbit from the Kapustin Yar site, using the smallest of the Soviet launch vehicles, and only in 1973 did they start space launches from Kapustin Yar which used the intermediate size of launch vehicle. All the "B" class small launch vehicles from there put payloads into an inclination of 48.4 to 49 degrees. All the intermediate "C" class vehicles put payloads into an inclination of about 50.7 degrees inclination.
The combination of use of the smaller launch vehicles and the use of the site for launching vertical probes make this site seem to parallel a combination of the Wallops Island, Va. station, and the
White Sands, N. Mex. test area. Some Western observers speculated that when the day came that the Soviet Government would ease its security rules sufficiently to open a launch site to outside visitors that Kapustin Yar was most likely to be the first to "go public." This view was encouraged when finally Soviet bloc scientists were permitted to go there in connection with the launch of Interkosmos flights which began in 1969. More recently, engineers and scientists from Sweden, India, and France have also visited Kapustin Yar in connection with the launches of their own payloads and experiments.
Landsat pictures of the area show signs of activity over many kilometers, but not on the scale of Tyuratam or even Plesetsk. (22)
Sary Shagan, the antiballistic missile (ABM) test station to intercept rockets fired from Kapustin Yar, was also found in Landsat pictures. (23)
Table 14 which follows summarizes the known successful launches by site, world wide, to provide a perspective on their relative levels of activity for orbital launch purposes. The figures do not reveal additional suborbital or missile launchings. The table reveals that Plesetsk has conducted more successful orbital launches than any other base in the world. Tyuratam has pulled ahead of Vandenberg since 1975 and Cape Canaveral is still a poor fourth.
References:
1. 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.
20. Moscow Home Service, 0900 GMT, Aug. 28, 1981 .
21 Aviation Week, New York , Oct. 21, 1957 , p. 26.
22. Aviation Week, New York , Dec. 1, 1975 , pp. 18-19.
23. Aviation Week, New York , Nov. 25, 1974 , pp. 20-21.
1971-1975 Study
The third Soviet launch site is near Kapustin Yar on the Volga River below the city of Volgograd at about, 48.4° N. latitude, 45.8° E. longitude, also in European Russia. Indirectly the site has been finally acknowledged by the Soviet Government, as some suborbital launches as referred to as coming from "Volgograd Station". The area has been used for a long time as a rocket test station. In the middle 1950's before the first Sputnik, Aviation Week magazine revealed the United States had a radar station in Turkey which used radar to follow missile and test rocket firings from this point. (10) Magazines of the period said that Soviet short and medium range missiles were launched south eastward from there toward the Kyzylkum Desert near the Aral Sea as the principal test range. In fact, this launch site was so well known that for several years after 1957, the American press assumed that it was used for the launch of the early Sputniks and Luna flights when in fact they came from the Tyuratam ICBM test center.
It was not until 1962 that payloads were placed in orbit from the Kapustin Yar site, using the smallest of the Soviet launch vehicles, and only in 1973 did they start space launches from Kapustin Yar which used the intermediate size of launch vehicle. All the "B" class small launch vehicles from there put payloads into an inclination of 48.4 to 49 degrees. All the intermediate "C" class vehicles put payloads into an inclination of about 50.7 degrees inclination.
The combination of use of the smaller launch vehicles and the use of the site for launching vertical probes make this site seem to parallel a combination of the Wallops Island, Virginia station, and the White Sands, New Mexico test area. Some Western observers speculated that when the day came that the Soviet Government would ease its security rules sufficiently to open a launch site to outside visitors that Kapustin Yar was most likely to be the first to "go public". This view was encouraged when finally Soviet bloc scientists were permitted to go there in connection with the launch of Interkosmos flights which began in 1969. (1)
Sary Shagan, the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) test station to intercept rockets fired from Kapustin Yar, was also found in Landsat pictures. (12)
Table 1-6 which follows summarizes the known successful launches by site, worldwide, to provide a perspective on their relative levels of activity for orbital launch purposes. The figures do not reveal additional suborbital or missile launchings. The table reveals that Plesetsk has conducted more successful orbital launches than any other base in the world with Vandenberg and Tyuratam running neck and neck, and Cape Canaveral a poor fourth.
1. 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,
10. Aviation Week, New York , October 21, 1957 , p. 26.
12. Aviation Week, New York , November 25, 1974 , pp. 20-21.
From 1966 to 1987 the USSR operated three launch sites: Baikonur in Kazakhstan and Plesetsk and Kapustin Yar in Russia. The last facility, which only launched the smallest space boosters, conducted its final orbital mission in 1987 and is no longer a part of the Russian Military Space Forces which manages all launch activities. Kapustin Yar's last space related mission was the concluding sub-orbital flight of the BOR-5 subscale model of the Buran space shuttle in June, 1988. The other two sites remain quite active and both have performed more space launchings than any other facilities in the world.
Kapustin Yar is located on the banks of the Volga River, about 75 miles east of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) and less than 30 miles east of Kazakhstan. This facility has been the site of sounding rocket and small orbital payload launches but is only infrequently used now. Its close proximity to Kazakhstan now precludes eastward launch without the approval of the Kazakh government.
According to some reports a British mission known as Project Robin flew a Canberra reconnaissance over the Kapustin Yar missile test site in 1953. New American radar technologies were used in the establishment of an intelligence collection site on the Black Sea coast at Samsum, Turkey, which enabled the United States to track the activity at Kapustin Yar.
The Soviet Union's INF Treaty eliminations began at Kapustin Yar Missile Test Complex on July 22, 1988, with the elimination of an SS-20 missile. The last SS-20 missile elimination occurred at Kapustin Yar Missile Test Complex in southern USSR on May 12, 1991. With the destruction of these SS-20 missiles, there remained only the elimination of SS-20 launchers and missile transporter vehicles to complete the Soviet Union's obligation to eliminate its 1,846 INF missiles and systems.
Overview Maps
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Overview Mosaics
 Mosaic 191k |
Corona Mission 1116-2
6 May 1972
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