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Џејн дифенс
Стивен Залога
May 1, 1997
SECTION: EUROPE; Vol. 9; No. 5; Pg. 205
LENGTH: 2629 words
HEADLINE: RED STAR WARS
BYLINE: Steven J Zaloga
HIGHLIGHT:
As far back as the late 1960s, scientists in the USSR had beensecretly theorising about the possibilities of space-based weaponry.In the early 1980s, however, spurred by US President Ronald Reagan'sannouncement of the Strategic Defense Initiative and a firmconviction that the US space shuttle programme was geared towardmilitary ends, Soviet efforts in this area took on a new importance.Steven J Zaloga tracks the Soviet side of 'Star Wars'.
BODY:
Throughout most of the 1980s, the Soviet Union's political leadership spent a considerable amount of time denouncing the US Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly called 'Star Wars' after the George Lucas film released in 1977. This Soviet propaganda campaign was partly intended to hide the USSR's substantial effort to develop its own space-based weapon systems.
Recent Russian revelations provide some intriguing details on those efforts and what was one of the Soviet Union's most secret defence programmes. This short article cannot provide a comprehensive description of all Soviet work in this area, but it is intended instead to highlight some of the major projects that have until now been kept secret. There was also a key difference in the Soviet approach to space-based weaponry, for while the US Star Wars programme was primarily oriented towards defending against ballistic missile attack, the Soviet programme went further - towards destroying enemy satellites.
Soviet space strike weapons
The possible applications of new weapon technologies for revolutionary roles were of considerable interest in the Soviet scientific and defence community in the late 1960s. The initiative in this area came mainly from the Ministry for Radio Industry (Minradioprom), which had managed the development of the Soviet anti-ballistic missile (ABM) programme since the late 1950s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a series of discussions were held among representatives of the Academy of Science, the military scientific-research institutes (NIIs), industrial design bureaux (OKBs), and the Soviet General Staff on the issue of space weapons. The consensus that emerged was that a programme should be undertaken in two phases, codenamed Fon-1 (Background-1) and Fon-2. Fon-1 represented advanced concept and technology development including directed energy weapons, electro-magnetic rail guns, novel warhead technologies, new ABM missiles and space platforms for applications of these weapons. Fon-2 was intended to facilitate the transition of these technologies into the engineering-manufacturing development phase in order to field actual systems. The Fon-1 programme formally began around 1976, although work was already underway on basic research of many of the novel directed-energy technologies.
This programme was not unanimously supported, and it was vigorously opposed by some segments of the defence and industrial communities which viewed it as a waste of funding that would be better directed to more conventional types of weaponry. Among its opponents was Grigori Kisunko, the general designer of the initial Moscow ABM system. In 1976, a research effort connected with Fon-1 was initiated at OKB Kometa, the design bureau headed by A I Savin, which had developed the first Soviet anti-satellite (ASAT) system in the 1960s. OKB Kometa was given the task of proposing a system that could destroy 10,000 re-entry vehicles and cruise missiles in 5 to 25 minutes with a probability of destruction of 99.8 per cent. Kometa concluded that such a system was not practical for both technological and economic reasons. Nevertheless, Fon-1 continued to be funded, with much of the effort being devoted to ASAT missions rather than ballistic missile defence (BMD).
The rapid expansion of development work on space- based weapons reached such a point in the 1970s that the Ministry of Defence Production (MOP) was obliged to set up a new 8th Main Directorate specifically to manage these programmes and co-ordinate the various research institutes. On the industrial side, the programme was headed by Petr S Pleshakov of Minradioprom and overseen by a committee of the Military Industrial Commission (VPK) headed by Leonid V Smirnov.
In spite of the lack of satisfactory progress on many of these exotic technologies, the programme took on new importance in the early 1980s when US President Ronald Reagan announced the initiation of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The combination of the SDI programme and associated concerns over the militarisation of space (related to the development of the US Space Shuttle) convinced some elements in the Soviet General Staff that the USA was aiming to deploy a comprehensive array of 'space strike systems' capable not only of defending against incoming missile re-entry vehicles, the ostensible goal of SDI, but also of attacking Soviet objectives on land, air and sea. The Soviet Ministry of Defence was convinced that the Space Shuttle's primary orientation was for military rather than scientific missions.
As a result, in 1983 Yuriy Andropov ordered the transition of the Fon programme to the next phase, Fon-2, and considerably increased the funding as a result. The aim of Fon-2 was broadened somewhat from its original intent to include space-based strike systems and technologies to counter the US SDI effort. In parallel to this acceleration of the space strike programme, in August 1983 Andropov initiated a diplomatic initiative to reach an agreement with the USA to ban tests and deployment of any type of space-based weapons. The Soviet Union also announced a unilateral moratorium on orbiting any type of anti-satellite interceptor, even though efforts under Fon-2 were funding precisely such programmes.
Directed energy weapon development
A principal centre for work on Soviet laser weapons was the Luch Central Design Bureau (TsKB Luch) headed by Nikolai Ustinov, the son of the defence minister Dmitri Ustinov. During the 1970s, the Luch Design Bureau was reorganised into the NPO Astrofizika, which included other firms in this field including the Granat High Energy Laser Special Design Bureau. Nikolai Ustinov had originally been a designer in the KB-1 organisation (now NPO Almaz) specialising in anti-ballistic missile systems. After his father's death in 1984, he was ousted from control and replaced by Boris Chemodanov. NPO Astrofizika was responsible both for strategic laser weapons as well as tactical laser weapons mounted on aircraft, armoured vehicles and ships. NPO Astrofizika controlled a very large portion of the total Soviet budget for directed energy weapons, amounting to about 4 billion roubles from 1969-1989. To put this in some perspective, the official 1988 Soviet defence budget was 20 billion roubles, so Astrofizika's annual funding alone amounted to about 1 per cent of the public Soviet defence budget. Astrofizika constructed a free-electron laser prototype at Storozhevaya, a 1 MW gas laser at Troitsk near Moscow and collaborated on a major laser complex at the Sary-Shagan PVO Air Defence proving ground in Kazakstan. Most of these systems examined the possible anti-satellite role for directed energy weapons.
Besides NPO Astrofizika, the other major centre for the development of directed energy weapons was OKB Vympel (later TsNPO Vympel). OKB Vympel had originally been part of KB-1 until the early 1960s and was the Soviet Union's primary research centre for anti-ballistic missile research. It should not be confused with the air-to-air missile design bureau with the similar name. Vympel was primarily involved in ground-based laser weapons and in attempts to develop a UHF directed-energy weapon. In 1969, it began work on the Terra-3 programme, aimed at examining the weapon potential of high-energy lasers against ballistic missile re-entry vehicles. An experimental laser system was erected by TsNPO Vympel at the Sary-Shagan PVO Air Defence proving ground beginning in the early 1970s. Defence Minister Andrey Grechko first visited the site in 1973.
The Sary Shagan Terra-3 testbed included a high- energy ruby laser and a high-energy CO2 laser. Vympel was primarily responsible for the overall concept and design of Terra-3, but the lasers were developed by Astrofizika. One of Terra-3's first operational uses was conducted in 1984 at the insistence of Defence Minister Dmitri Ustinov, who was concerned that the US space shuttle was being used as a reconnaissance platform. On 10 October 1984, on the 13th Challenger mission, the US space shuttle was tracked by the Terra-3 laser at low power while being directed by the 5N24 Argun phased-array radar at the Sary Shagan PVO site. This caused malfunctions on the space shuttle and distress to the crew, leading to a formal US diplomatic protest. In 1989, US scientists were allowed to inspect one of the associated laser sensors of the Terra-3 complex that was used to aim the main beams. Although the complex provided the Soviet programme with considerable detail about laser interaction with typical ICBMs and re-entry vehicles, Terra-3 did not prove practical as a weapon.
Astrofizika and Vympel were supported by a wide range of smaller research institutes, such as the Scientific Research Institute for Thermal Processes (NIITP), which was developing high energy gas dynamic lasers for space-based applications, and the Scientific Research Institute for Radio Device Production (NII-Radiopriborostroeniya), which was developing plasma weapons. Much of the advanced research work was carried out by scientific institutions, including the Academy of Science's Physics Institute, the All-Union Scientific Institute for Power Engineering and Physics (VNIIEF) and the State Institute for Optics (GOI).
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