References:

A. SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMS: 1976-80 (WITH SUPPLEMENTARY DATA THROUGH 1983), UNMANNED SPACE ACTIVITIES, PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF Hon. JOHN C. DANFORTH, Chairman, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, UNITED STATES SENATE, Part 3, MAY 1985, Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, 99th Congress, 1 st. session, COMMITTEE PRINT, S. Prt. 98-235, U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1985

53. Daly, P. University of Leeds. Private communication.

54. Moscow World Service in English, 2200 GMT, Nov. 10, 1983.

55. Ibid.

56. Tass in English, 1136 GMT, Jan. 23, 1984.

Adapted from: Europe and Asia in Space 1993-1994, Nicholas Johnson and David Rodvold [Kaman Sciences / Air Force Phillips Laboratory]
717. N. A. Armand and B. G. Kutuza, "International Space Project of the Earth Remote Sensing 'Priroda"', Paper IAF-90-103, 41st Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, 1990.
718. "77 KSI Research Module, Purpose and Description", M. V. Khrunichev Machine Building Plant, 1989.
719. B. Z. Petrenko and S. V. Sokolovskiy, Issledovanive Zemli Iz Kosmosa, March-April 1989, p. 123.

Priroda

EARTH AND OCEAN RESOURCES

Interkosmos 21, launched by a C-vehicle from Plesetsk into a 94.5-minute orbit with a 74° inclination, on February 6, 1981, carried instrumentation produced by Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Romania, and the Soviet Union. The announced mission was the conduct of oceanographic and remote sensing experiments. The 31st Meteor, in a Sun-synchronous orbit like its predecessor, carried some 600 kg of remote sensing equipment. High-resolution, electronically scanned and medium-resolution, mechanically scanned instruments transmitted on the standard 465 MHz downlink but a special 1 GHz downlink was added for the wider range "Fragment" eight-channel, multispectral system. Greater detail will be found in chapter 4 of this study. Aside from the recoverable Kosmos missions described in chapter 5, there were no specifically dedicated Earth resources missions launched during 1982. Kosmos 1484, launched on July 24, 1983, in the Sun-synchronous orbit characteristic of the Meteor-Priroda satellites, was announced as having an Earth resources mission. This announcement, coupled with the interception of its transmissions in Sweden, dispel any suspicion of it being a failure in the Meteor-Priroda series. Kosmos 1500, placed into a 97.8-minute, 82.5° inclination orbit, was announced as performing a similar mission to the earlier Kosmos 1076 to investigate sea, ice, and wind conditions. It was immediately effective in providing imagery which enabled the freeing of Soviet merchant ships trapped by a sudden freeze in the ice in the eastern sector of the Arctic Ocean. (54) Although it was reported that the orbit would be "corrected to monitor the ice situation in the western sector of the Arctic," (55) implying some propulsion capability, no such maneuver was detected. It was subsequently announced that Kosmos 1500 was equipped with side-looking radar which had been installed for the first time on an oceanographic satellite. (56) The equipment, which had been developed by Ukrainian scientists, was said to "ensure high-quality photography at any time of the day and in any weather," a statement having implications for the consideration of military imaging systems discussed.

Priroda (Nature)

Existing plans call for the launch in late 1995 of the Priroda (Nature) auxiliary module to augment substantially the Earth observation capabilities of the Mir space station complex. With a basic structure mass of 19.7 metric tons, a volume of more than 66 ma, a length of approximately 12 m (without solar panel deployment) and a maximum diameter of 4.35 m, Priroda is the most sophisticated and complex Earth observation spacecraft undertaken by the Russian Federation. The overall mission objectives of the Priroda module are the:

"determination of the atmospheric-ocean system characteristics;
measurements of the land local characteristics;
measurement of optical characteristics of the atmosphere;
investigation of the sea surface roughness state;
comparison of radiation and reflection characteristics of the sea surface in the microwave range;
and measurements of the concentrations of trace gases in the atmosphere."

The Delta-2P and Ikar-N radiometers and the Travers synthetic aperture radar have been designed by the Moscow Energy Institute, while the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Space Research is responsible for the Obzor spectrometer. The Moscow Energy Institute has also developed the 2.25-cm wavelength Greben radar altimeter which will provide precise altitude data with an accuracy of 0.1 m for correlation with the Earth observation systems. The MSU-E and MSU-SK multi-spectral scanners are being provided by the Space Instrument Building NPO, and the Istok-1 spectrometer is a product of the Academy's Institute of Physics.

The module will be powered by a 35 m² array with a generating capacity of 4.2 kW but an average daily power availability of only 0.5-1.0 kW. Peak loads of up to 7 kW will be possible. Finally, the Centaur data acquisition system, similar to the Okean Condor system, will be operated for the collection of environmental information from various terrestrial sites. The Centaur system was created by the Moscow Energy Institute (References 717-719).

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