Russian Missile Designers Laud Products
Moscow NTV 10 Apr 99
[Presenter Mikhail Osokin] A lot of people in the world are interested in our air defence systems, and those who design them are rightly proud of them. Air defence units celebrate their professional holiday tomorrow. Here is our special report from the missile laboratories.
[Correspondent Yevgeniy Kirichenko] The fastest missiles in the world are born in Khimki [Moscow Region], on Academic Grushin Street. [passage omitted: the design office was opened in 1953; the building looks anonymous; history of shooting down of US aircraft over Sverdlovsk Region in 1960; Vladimir Svetlov, captioned as chief designer of the Fakel Machine-Building Design Bureau named after Petr Grushin, comments on the 1960 incident; correspondent details other Cold War incidents]
A few years ago, as a result of a cunning sequence of events in which several states acted as intermediaries, the Pentagon managed to get hold of the S-300V anti-aircraft system; however, at Fakel they do not think that the Americans will be able to work out the system's secret. [Svetlov] The whole secret is in the system's support programme, which you won't find by getting into the missile and you won't find by getting into the system - you need to get into the heads of the programmers who created the programme.
[Correspondent] The main quality of Russian missiles is their simplicity. They spend their whole lives, from assembly to launching, in a tightly-sealed container. If a Japanese TV, which is far simpler than the S-300, is guaranteed for a year, our missiles have a minimum guarantee of ten times longer.
When it penetrates the dense stratum of the atmosphere at a speed of several hundred km per second, the shell plating heats up to 2,000 degrees [C]. For a missile to stand such strong heat, its components are tested in a special laboratory equipped with hundreds of quartz lamps. The tests are observed from behind a reinforced window. Judging from the pockmarks on the glass, not all the experiments end in success. The characteristics are registered by hundreds of flight recorders from nearby premises, under the watchful gaze of a laboratory assistant and a portrait of Lenin.
Meanwhile, the deflector of the on board antenna, frozen in a special fridge, is subjected to vibrating blows, to check what effect such a burden will have on its working characteristics. The missile must shoot the enemy aircraft down in any climate zone, even the North Pole. We are in the laboratory where the missiles are taught to find the target. The exterior of the laboratory is covered with a material capable of absorbing all electromagnetic radiation in the widest waveband. This is done to register the characteristics of the missiles' on board antenna as accurately as possible.
At Fakel they call this laboratory the 'no-echo cells'. If you brought a mobile phone in here, no-one would be able to ring you. There are radar-absorbing elements like pillows made of down hidden under the yellow cloth - this is its own kind of Stealth technology, but it is absolutely forbidden to touch it. There is a warning notice in English, too, for foreign buyers. Each one is told that not even the famous invisible aircraft can hide from the punishing S-300 missiles.
[Boris Korablev, deputy chief designer of the bureau] Stealth technology is good for a narrow waveband, but Stealth technology won't work in a wide waveband. I can tell you one thing: our missiles in the S-300PM-I and S-300PMU-II systems can destroy these targets with no problem. The design bureau is now working on missiles for a new system with the working name Triumph [Russian: Triumf], which can intercept a target at a distance of more than 400 km. It was ordered by the Defence Ministry, but the military has nothing to pay for it with, so no-one in the design bureau can say when the Russian army will get new weapons. Foreign clients are prepared to pay in advance.
[Svetlov] Any worker who works has to be paid his salary, and he doesn't care who pays it - [Yugoslav President Slobodan] Milosevic or [Russian Prime Minister Yevgeniy] Primakov. If his salary is paid, he will work and do his job.
[passage omitted: Svetlov grows lemons in his office] The average salary at Fakel is R752, but sometimes staff have to wait nine months for it. [passage omitted: people still come to work] [Video showed archive footage; missiles; equipment; laboratories]
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