Plesetsk Cosmodrome
62.8 N 40.7 E
Overview, Supporting Facilities and Launch Vehicles of the
Soviet Space Program *
1981-1987
1. Prepared by the late Geoffrey E. Perry M.B.E. [1927-2000] Mr. Perry was a Senior Teacher at Kettering Boys School, England, and the leader of the Kettering Group of amateur satellite observers.
LAUNCH SITES IN THE SOVIET UNION
The Soviet Union has three collections of space launch pads, just as does the United States. Curiously, even the functions of these three locations have a similarity, which will be detailed in the sections to follow.
PLESETSK
The 1985 encyclopedia's entry for Plesetsk(19) is even more brief than that for Kapustin Yar, confining itself to listing Cosmos, Molniya and Meteor as the types of payloads orbited from there, repeating the standard phrase about technical support positions, launch complexes and measuring stations for determining flight parameters and giving the date of foundation as 1960.
The first public disclosure of the use and approximate location came from the Kettering Grammar School in England in 1966.(20 21) However, the first Soviet acknowledgement of its existence came in two mentions in Gubarev's Pravda article on Kapustin Yar. This was followed, two weeks later, by his article on "Plesetsk—the Launching Point." (22) A Western journalist remarked that the Soviet Union had made a major policy U-turn in its handling of the space program and for the first time in 26 years had permitted two of its launch sites to be described in the Soviet press.(23) The article begins by citing two "flying saucer" (UFO) reports and explaining them as sightings of a satellite launch from the Plesetsk cosmodrome. It goes on to report that Plesetsk is unusual in not being located in open steppe, but in taiga. At the time of Gubarev's visit, presumably for the nighttime launch of Intercosmos 8 on November 30, 1972, there was a lot of snow and the temperature was minus 30°C. The observation point was on the edge of a clearing in the forest, right next to the launch pad. The most difficult feature confronting the constructors of the cosmodrome was the swampy nature of the terrain. The launching complexes were ready on schedule and the cosmodrome began operation in 1960, although it was six years before the first satellite was successfully launched from there. False-color imagery of the area has been published.(24)
Further details of the Plesetsk cosmodrome were revealed in another newspaper article.25 It places the location in the Archangelsk region and points out that satellites under joint space programs involving, along with Soviet scientists, specialists of Sweden, Canada, USA, India and France, have been launched from there. Pointing out that the launching of space rockets involves certain risks to settlements located up to hundreds of kilometers away from the cosmodrome, with spent stages falling to Earth possibly damaging structures and causing accidents, the article states that the active section of the launch trajectory should be over areas with small or no population at all and claims that the Archangelsk taiga satisfies this criterion. There are a number of complexes, similar to the launching site for the Soyuz carrier rocket, intended for launching Molniya and Meteor satellites.26 Launches of small and medium-size satellites, such as Cosmos and Intercosmos, are made from complexes named Raduga (Rainbow) and Voskhod (Ascent).(27) These do not employ the suspended launch system of the A-vehicle, but are installed directly on the launch pad. Servicing is from a 100 m rail-mounted turret with a foundation of some 200 sq m and a total weight of 450 tonnes. The turret was said to cover, like a bell, the starting device and the rocket itself during preparation for launching, ensuring the normal operation of the servicing personnel in any weather and at any time of day. The upper part houses a special hoisting gear for placing the launch vehicle in the vertical position. These complexes differ from others in that, should the need arise, payloads can be switched when the rocket is already on the starting device.
In the design of the Raduga and Voskhod technical and launching complexes the equipment was unified to some degree. The technology of the preparation for launching is standard, despite the differences of the rockets. Both types can be prepared for flight on one and the same technical complex.
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.
18. Ibid.
19. Previous editions of this report have been self-contained, with each new version repeating all the historical information from past editions. As the years have progressed, it has become increasingly weighty to follow this practice. Therefore, beginning with this volume, only new developments will be described in detail. Fresh information is provided whenever it amplifies or amends that presented in earlier editions. Individuals interested in reading the previous editions can access them at U.S. Government depository libraries, which include most university libraries and libraries in major cities.
20. Perry, G. E. Flight International. London, April 21, 1966, p. 670.
21. Perry, G. E. Flight International. London, November 10, 1966, p. 817.
22. Gubarev, V. Pravda, June 20, 1983, p. 3.
23. Rich, Vera. Nature, London, June 30, 1983, p. 745.
24. National Geographic, October 1986, pp. 440-441.
25. Krasnaya Zvezda, August 29, 1987.
26. Since 1982, most Meteor satellites have been launched by the F-2 and not the A-l launch vehicle.
27. There is a possibility of confusion in the use of these names which have been used for types of spacecraft, neither of which has been launched from Plesetsk. Raduga is a class of geosynchronous communications satellite and Voskhod was the name given to two piloted spacecraft which flew between the Vostok and Soyuz series.
28. This degree of flexibility may account for the relatively short reaction time which has been observed when a replacement payload is orbited .
NOTES
1. This record is of launch "successes" as defined elsewhere in this study; that is, any
flight which reached at least one Earth orbit, or which escaped from Earth, either to lunar distance, or to enter solar orbit.
2. Not all launch sites have been announced by the launching country, but most flights can quickly be identified by repetitive use of certain orbital locations. A plot of the ground traces of the "zero revolution" (the initial part of the flight before the Equator is first crossed) will disclose a nodal point which will define that a launch pad is near a certain spot on the surface of the Earth. In occasional instances where a given inclination for an orbit of unknown origin could have come from more than one launch site can still be pinned down by plotting the zero revolution orbital ground trace to observe which launch site falls on this path. In the case of escape missions and geostationary missions, these are already known to have come exclusively from only a few sites ( Cape Canaveral, Tyuratam, Tanegashima, and soon Kourou).
3. The names of launch sites listed are in a sense a kind of shorthand. Plesetsk has never been precisely identified by the U.S.S.R., which refers generally to a northern cosmodrome. The nodal point of the ground traces is near the city of Plesetsk. Tyuratam is officially called the Baykonur Cosmodrome, and the officially listed launch coordinates are several hundred kilometers northwest of the nodal point which is near the railway stop of Tyuratam, and now the growing space city of Leninsk. Vandenberg is the name of an air force base in California near Lompoc, and now expanded to include additional pads at Point Arguello. Cape Canaveral refers to the collection of pads both on the Cape and on nearby Merritt Island, most administered by the Kennedy Space Center. Kapustin Yar is the town nearest the nodal point of launches from a site the U.S.S.R. calls Volga Station. Wallops Island is a NASA site on the Delmarva Peninsula. Uchinoura is a site on Kagoshima Bay, Kyushu. Shuang Cheng Zi is the current spelling of what was Shuang Cheng Tzu in Gansu (formerly Kansu) province. The Indian Ocean Platform also carries the designator San Marco and was constructed by Italy just outside the territorial waters of Kenya. Kourou is in French Guiana. Tanegashima is an island at the northern end of the Ryukyu chain. Hammaguir was the former French site in southern Algeria, later stopped and moved to Kourou. Woomera is in south Australia. Sriharikota is near Madras.
4. The count of launches matches other tables of this study and corresponds to the numbers recorded by COSPAR, the Committee on Space, of ICSU, the International Council of Scientific Unions.
SOURCES.—These have been derived as explained above, and as carried in (updated) logs of studies published by either the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, or the House Committee on Science and Technology, derived from United Nations registers, Goddard Satellite Situation Reports, and the logs of the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
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