Soviet RECSAT Program
photo reconnaissance recoverable flights
The subset of recoverable satellites within the Kosmos program is considered in greater detail in chapter 5. However, the Soviets now identify certain flights within this subset as performing missions "to continue the study of the Earth in the interests of different sectors of the national economy of the U.S.S.R., and interna tional cooperation." For some, but not all, of these flights, the TASS announcement states that "the incoming information is being turned over to the Priroda (Nature) State Scientific Research and Production Center for processing and use." The description of the Priroda Center follows.
First indications of such a program within the recoverable Kosmos program came in 1968 when two satellites, Kosmos 210 and 214, flew at a new inclination of 81.3°. Both launches occurred in April and were not repeated that year. It was suggested that their objective was to secure photographic data relating to the breakup of Arctic ice on the sea routes along Russia's northern coastline. 212
Further flights with this near-polar inclination followed in succeeding years, usually in pairs during April but with each member of the pair having different resolution characteristics. As time passed, other flights appeared with this inclination at different times of the year, often associated with scientific secondary mis sions. Table 40 lists possible Earth resources missions within this subset since September 1975.
Notes:- The table lists by date of launch Kosmos flights by number which had possible Earth resources missions, in most instances as announced by
the U.S.S.R., and in a few instances implied. - Most of these flight are indistinguishable from military recoverable photographic missions, and are launched on the A-2 vehicle. By 1980, the
recoverable missions had switched from the typical 81.3" or 81.4' inclination to 82.3° inclination. It is a temptation to label these as F-2 flights,
and this has been done tentatively, but with some hesitation. - Apogee and perigee are given in kilometers, inclination in degrees, and period in minutes.
*. An indication is given as to whether the mission also carried a separable pickaback. This identification is not always easy, as some maneuvering engine units or other pieces of debris may give a radar signature which is not so different from a pickaback. On earlier missions, the fettering Group could distinguish those paytoads carrying a pickaback by listening lor "word 7" which on pickaback flights started out short and lengthened during the flight.
5 In the cases of a few listed flights, there was a distinct upward adjustment of Ihe orbit during the Ilight, and the new orbit is also listed.
Source: App III of pt. 1. based on lass reports, plus tabulations of Ihe Royal Aircraft Establishment.
Kosmos 771 was the first satellite to have a TK recovery beacon since the phasing out of the Morse code telemetry satellites nearly 2 years earlier. TK's are received from some satellites with an nounced Earth resources missions but others send TF on recovery. Attempts to correlate the two types of recovery beacon with the presence or absence of the Priroda designation in the Tass an nouncement were not successful. However, the Kettering Group eventually showed that TK was characteristic of missions with a photographic arc at 220 kilometers whereas TFs were received at the close of missions with photographic arcs at 275 kilometers. 213
The Tass announcement for Kosmos 912 was the first to employ the phrases quoted in the opening paragraph of this section. The reference to the involvement of the Priroda Center is omitted in some instances and this may not be without significance.
In 1979, there was a large increase in the number of announced Earth resources flights. This was sustained during 1980, coinciding with a change of inclination to 82.3" which could be due to the in troduction of a new launch vehicle, provisionally designated F-2.
No photographs from such missions have been published and this may point to a dual military-economic role. However, their mode of operation was confirmed in an article by Kiyenko. He writes,
The Kosmos series satellites, which are used to study the natural resources of the Earth, are equipped with various gear and are designed for returning photographic materi als to Earth by means of descent vehicles. The satellites of this type make it possible, for example, to take multispec- tral photographs. The function of such satellites consists in the systematic support of the national economy with space photographic materials of a high spatial resolution for the solution of production and scientific problems of a long term nature in the interests of studying the Earth's sur face, its interior, the vegetative cover, seas and oceans, shelf waters, etc. 214
In the figure illustrating the article, such satellites are depicted as having a cylindrical instrument and engine section supporting, in front, a capsule formed from two cones joined base to base with the one attached to the cylinder being truncated at approximately half its height. While this is obviously schematic and should be accepted with circumspection, it must be pointed out that the repre sentations of Salyut and Meteor in the same illustration are good representations of the actual spacecraft.
ocean resources non-recoverable flights
Writing on the main directions of Earth research from space in light of the decisions of the 26th Communist Party of the Soviet Union Congress for the llth 5-year plan, the vice president of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences specified investigations that would make it "possible to develop recommendations for determining zones of increased biological productivity, including fish, as well as scientific principles for the regional utilization of the ocean's biological and energy resources." 215 The importance of the ocean's re sources is illustrated by the facts that 15 percent of the animal pro tein consumed as human food is provided by sea fisheries and about 20-25 percent of the world production of petroleum and gas already comes from the zone of the Continental Shelf. 216 Konova- lov also makes the point that fish frequently seek shallow waters and that the introduction of the 200-mile economic zone by coastal countries has removed the most productive part of the waters of the world oceans from the free zone of fishing. The Soviet fishing fleet has been forced to move into the open ocean which, for the most part, constitute sea "deserts" and must now rely on cosmon autics to help to detect "oases" of fish life in those areas. 217 The Mediterranean Sea, which is poor in life is very transparent and has a blue-violet color whereas the Atlantic, which is biologically productive in its shallow-water areas, is turbid and had a greenish hue due to the presence of tiny algae and photoplankton, which contain chlorophyll. The interpretation of space photographs of coastal waters revealing subsurface structure makes it possible to detect regions promising for petroleum and gas.
A leading expert in Soviet oceanographic research is the director of the Marine Hydrophysical Institute, Ukrainian Academy of Sci ences, at Katsiveli in the Crimea, Boris A. Nelepo. For a detailed exposition on space oceanography the reader is directed to his article on its problems and prospects, published in 1979. 218 Some of these problems are listed in the abstract to another of Nelepo's ar ticles and include investigation of the patterns of spatial distribu tion of minerals on the floor of the world ocean, and especially in shelf zones; prediction of biological productivity of various specific regions and the ocean as a whole for efficient use of its food re sources; detection of areas of interest for the commercial extraction of mineral resources; monitoring of ocean contamination and development of methods of contending with contaminants; prediction of earthquakes and tsunamis. He comments that "such an enormous program can be implemented only by the use of artificial Earth satellites alone or in a ship-buoy-satellite system." 219
The meteorological use of oceanographic satellites has been men tioned above. The oceanographic aspects will be discussed below.
INTERKOSMOS 20
Launched by a C-l vehicle from Plesetsk, on November 1, 1979, into an orbit with period 94.4 min., 74° inclination, and heights be tween 523 and 467 km, Interkosmos 20 was the first Interkosmos mission for oceanographic research. The principal objective of the mission was to test an experimental system for the collection of in formation from buoys and its transmission via a central ground reception station to users. The equipment was developed by special ists from Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and the U.S.S.R.
KOSMOS 1025
Launched by an F-2 vehicle from Plesetsk, on June 28, 1978, into an orbit with period 97.8 min., 82.5° inclination, and heights be tween 680 and 649 km, Kosmos 1025 was the first satellite in the Kosmos series to have such orbital parameters. It may be consid ered as a development flight for the two oceanographic satellites which followed, a systems failure, or unrelated to them and per forming an electronic intelligence [ELINT] gathering mission of some kind.
KOSMOS 1076
Launched on February 12, 1979, into an orbit similar to that of Kosmos 1025, Kosmos 1076 was announced as performing an ocean ographic mission. Its research equipment was comprised of four in struments:
- A visible-band spectrometer, used to determine the charac teristics of sea water according to the spectrum of the emitted radiation. It had six channels in the 455-675 nanommeter band, with a bandwidth of 3-8 nm in each channel and local resolution of about 20 km;
- A multichannel infrared radiometer, used to determine the ocean's surface temperature and the atmosphere's param eters and transfer function. It had 10 channels in the 9.04-18.4m micron band, with an individual channel pass band of 135-325 nm and spatial resolution of the order of 25 km;
- A multichannel super high-frequency radiometer, used to determine the ocean's surface temperature, wave action inten sity and wind force, ice cover characteristics, atmospheric hu midity, water reserves in clouds and intensity of precipitation.
It had four working wavelengths: 8, 13.5, 32, and 85 mm. The 32 mm channel consisted of two semicomplexes. The antenna of one of them was oriented at an angle of 56° from the nadir, along the direction of the satellite's flight and operates in two
orthogonal polarizations. The field of view of the superhigh-fre quency radiometer semicomplex on the 32 mm band, as is the case for all other wavelengths, is oriented on the nadir. - Spatial resolution on the Earth's surface ranges from 18 km in the 8 mm band to 85 km on the 85 mm band; and
- Equipment for collecting data from automatic buoy sta tions and transmitting them to reception centers. 220
The visible band equipment clearly detected the cloudy and cloudless sections along the satellite's ground-track. When deter mining the color of the ocean, however, significant difficulties re lated to the strong back-scattering of sunlight from the Earth's at mosphere were encountered, less than 20 percent of the radiation received coming from the ocean's surface. Only in rare, favorable cases was it possible to evaluate variations in chlorophyll concen tration in the sea water by this technique. 221
KOSMOS 1151
This satellite, launched from Plesetsk on January 23, 1980, was also announced as performing oceanographic research. Its orbital parameters were similar to those of Kosmos 1025 and 1076. Obser vations by Sven Grahn, of the Kettering Group, showed that it transmitted weak c/w signals on frequencies of 153 and 204 MHz, the third and fourth harmonics of 51 MHz presumably for Doppler tracking. Instrumentation was as for Kosmos 1076.
Ocean surface temperature maps were compiled for the North Atlantic on the basis of the results of the superhigh-frequency radi- ometric measurements made by Kosmos 1151. In the absence of heavy wave action and severe cloudiness, the mean-square error in the temperature determination is estimated to be of the order of 2 K. Results of spectral and polarization measurements made over the Arctic Ocean confirmed the possibility of obtaining information about the state of the ice cover. Measurements made on January 25, 1980, reproduced graphically, clearly delineate four discrete areas: the Greenland Sea, where brightness temperature variations are related to changes in the ice's solidity and thickness; the northern part of the Greenland Sea, where the ice cover's solidity is ap proximately constant but its thickness increases; zones of open water to the northwest of Spitzbergen; and the solid ice zone of the Arctic Ocean where changes in brightness temperature at 85 mm wave-length indicate the ice cover's temperature pattern. 222
the priroda center
The word "Priroda" (Nature) has appeared frequently in recent years in a number of different connections. The writer's first recol lection was a reference to the 25th Meteor as "Meteor-Priroda." Later, certain satellites in the Kosmos series were announced as re porting to the Priroda Center. These were those with recoverable payloads in near-polar orbits which had been identified as perform ing ice reconnaissance during the period of breakup of ice along the northern sea route across the Soviet Union. 223 As time went by, these satellites flew at other times of the year and some, but by no means all, were given the Priroda designation in the launch announcement.
The Salyut 6 cosmonauts were directed primarily in their visual observation program by specialists of the State Nature Center who were located, for the duration of the flights, at the Kaliningrad Flight Control Center. 224
Priroda is also the name given to a special mobile laboratory designed for ground truth measurements in conjunction with remote sensing by satellites and aircraft. The laboratory is built onto a large truck equipped with a cherry-picker arm on whose platforms is mounted the sensor instrumentation. The program was coordi nated by the Nature Resources Space Research Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaidzhan. 225
In the Soviet Union there are more than 1,200 scientific re search, planning and production organizations, higher and interme diate special educational institutions which are interested in the use of the data on Earth sensing from space. Steps were taken to evolve a statewide system of economic and efficient design with op timized information capability, precision, timeliness and reliability to satisfy as completely as possible the needs of the national economy. 226 There was a need to develop two closely interrelated, yet at the same time, rather independent approaches obtaining and using the remote sensing data, of a quick-look and a long-term nature. Consequently, two specialized centers were established: the State Scientific Research Center for the Study of Natural Resources [GOSNITs IPR] of the State Committee of Hydrometeorology and Environmental Protection and the State Scientific-Research and Production Center "Priroda" of the Chief Administration of Geode sy and Cartography at the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. These were assigned the tasks of obtaining, intersectoral process ing, storage and dissemination of space information for the quick- look and long-term purposes respectively. 227
An automated information retrieval complex is under develop ment at the Priroda Center. The first section of the complex has been operational for some time and performs the following func tions:
- Stores blocks of data about quantitative and qualitative
parameters of pictures taken from space; - Informs users on a regular basis or upon request about
availability and nature of information about any part of the
Soviet Union contained on film taken from space; - Synthesizes information; and
- Checks accuracy and completeness of data furnished to cli ents.
This first section was estimated to have saved 280,000 rubles and relieved 80 persons of manual processing work in its first year of operation. 228
It will be seen that, in some respects the Priroda Center fills a role analogous to that of the U.S. EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, SD, where Landsat data is collected, stored, and sold. Soviet technical papers on remote sensing include Landsat data from time to time and, for a while, it appeared that the Soviet Union was pursuing plans to build a ground station for direct reception of Landsat data. State Department approval would have been required before the high-technology transfer of U.S. equipment could take place and the Soviets would have had to agree to make avail able any data that the United States might require under the terms of a Landsat agreement. 229 An account of Soviet participa tion in the Landsat system is to be found in part 1 of this study. 230
MILITARY MISSIONS
RECOVERABLE PHOTOGRAPHIC RECONNAISSANCE FLIGHTS
As can be seen from figure 58, recoverable payloads continue to account for nearly 50 percent of all Kosmos launches.
Details of these launches are given in table 6 a through d. Several trends can be readily identified, the most significant possibly being the increased employment of the fourth generation long-du-ration missions which provide almost continuous coverage all year. It has been reported that the Soviet Union has an advanced imagery reconnaissance spacecraft using digital image transmission rather than film-return capsules and this might refer to this class of payload. (57) This is discussed more fully in chapter 5.
Four of the high-resolution, maneuverable, A-2 launched missions were flown in 1983. Many more of the high-perigee missions were flown including four at the F-2 inclination of 82.3°. All of these were designated as Earth resources missions as was Kosmos 1482 from Tyuratam at 70.0°. In fact, the F-2 launches at 82.3° produced the second largest number of satellites at a given inclination during 1983; 10 compared with 11 at 72.9°.
No particular targets were immediately obvious for the 1981 flights, but the Falklands conflict gave rise to speculation that Kosmos launches during April and May of 1982 were all Falklands related. (58) In the case of the photographic recoverable satellites this was certainly not so. Part of the cause for the misunderstanding was a failure to identify different types of missions when in possession of the announced initial orbital parameters only. Thus Kosmos 1347, Kosmos 1352, and Kosmos 1368, all with inclinations of 70.4°, appeared at first sight to be identical missions.(59) However, lack of short-wave telemetry, even before the 50-day duration became apparent, revealed Kosmos 1347 to be a fourth generation spacecraft. Kosmos 1352 raised its perigee towards the end of the first day in orbit and falls within the "medium resolution (?)" category and only Kosmos 1368 was the older close-look high resolution spacecraft.
Johnson pointed out that poor weather in the South Atlantic made photographic observations improbable and that the Argentines, who were purportedly in receipt of Soviet intelligence, held the islands until the last days of the conflict. Furthermore, no perigees were located in the southern hemisphere and no steps were taken to provide stabilized ground-tracks over the islands. (60)
However, Johnson did draw attention to possible coverage of the Israeli incursion into Lebanon on June 6, the flare up of hostilities on the Iranian-Iraqi front in November, and passes over the landing sites of STS-1 at Edwards AFB, CA, and STS-3 at White Sands, NM, although in the latter cases it is difficult to visualize the value of imagery obtained before the landing. (61)
Pairs of mapping and geodesy missions were flown only in 1981 and 1982 and were at 82.3° as reported earlier.
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.
212 Perry, G.E., Flight International, London, vol. 94, Dec. 26, 1968, pp. 1077-1079.
2l3 Awaiting publication.
214 Kiyenko, Yu. P. Issledovaniye Zemli iz Kosmosa, No. 2,
215 Sidorenko, A.V. Issledovaniye Zemli iz Kosmosa, No. 2, March-April 1981, pp. 5-8.
216 Konovalov, B. Izevestiya, July 29, 1981, p. 3.
217. Idem.
218. Nelepo, B.A. Leningrad, Problemy Issledovaniya i Osovoyeniya Microvogo Okeana, 1979, pp. 111-133. Translated in JPRS L/9526, U.S.S.R. report, Space (FOUO 1/81), Feb. 5, 1981, with 23 references in bibliography (16 Russian).
219. Nelepo, B.A. Issledovaniye Zemli iz Kosmosa, No. 1, 1980, pp. 55-63.
220 Nelepo, B.A., et al., Issledovaniye Zemli iz Kosmosa, No. 3, May-June 1982, pp. 5-12.
221 Idem.
222 Ibid., figs. 3 and 4.
223 Soviet Space Programs, 1971-75. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976, p. 447.
224 Spaceflight. London, vol. 21, No. 2, 1979, p. 74.
225. Spaceflight, London, vol. 22, No. 4, 1980, p. 166.
226 Kiyenko, Yu. P. Issledovaniye Zemli iz Kosmosa, No. 2, 1980, pp. 5-10.
227 Idem.
228 Krasnov, V.I., Ye. A. Reshetov, and I.N. Fadeyev. Geodeziya i Kartografiya, No. 11, 1980, pp. 51-55.
57. Aviation Week and Space Technology. Nov. 2, 1981, p. 48.
58. Halloran, R. New York Times, May 3, 1982.
59. Aviation Week and Space Technology, May 31, 1982, p. 20.
60. Johnson, N.L. The Soviet Year in Space: 1982. Teledyne Brown Engineering, p 8
61. Ibid., pp. 8-9.
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