In the late 1960s, the development of a new highly effective radar, the Daryal type, was commenced by the Mints Radiotechnical Institute (RTI) under the supervision of A. Mints and V. Ivantsov. The main distinguishing features of this radar are an extremely high radiated power, use of a phased array for both reception and transmission, and digital processing of signals. The transmitter antenna of the radar had dimensions of 30 x 40 meters. The antenna included many centrally controlled transmitters within it. The receiving antenna had dimensions of 80 x 80 meters. The radar worked in the meter bandwidth.
The development of complexes for overcoming missile defense systems deployed on ballistic missiles (false targets, stations of active jamming, etc.) dramatically complicated the tasks of selecting and maintaining complex ballistic targets. Stations like "Dniester" and "Dnepr" could not solve these tasks in the required volume. In this connection, in the late 1960s , the creation of a high-power radar warning system for a missile attack was launched in the USSR.
The development began in 1968 within the framework of R & D "Equator", at which the preliminary design of the station was created. After selecting technical options for implementation, the Radar Technical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now part of the RTI Systems group) became the lead developer of the radar. The main designer of the radar was appointed Viktor Ivantsov.
By 1971, a preliminary design of the station was developed. Unprecedented high power consumption dictated its decisions. Initially, it was intended to take the station to Franz Josef Land (specifically to the island of Alexandra Land) to enable it to detect ballistic targets reaching the pole as early as possible. In connection with the energy deficit of the district, the radar was supposed to be equipped with nuclear autonomous power sources. Subsequently, the first station, and without which appeared on the labor and resource seven times more expensive than the already mastered the radar of the "Dnepr", decided after all to build on the mainland, and nuclear power declined.
The station was a huge complex of equipment (4070 units of radio electronic equipment), located in two high-rise buildings ("receiver" and "transmitter") spaced 500-1500 meters apart. The receiving antenna had a dimension of 100 by 100 meters, transmitting antenna - 40 by 40. We used the technology of an active phased array antenna, the active radar elements of the radar changed directly during the operation of the station by a special robotic complex. The pulse power of the radar reached 378 MW. The computer complex of the radar was based on the multiprocessor vector-parallel computer M-10 (5.1 million operations per second).
There were nine stations of this type in the former Soviet Union. This station, designed for large radiated power and having a huge area of the antenna strip, was supposed to be equipped with nuclear autonomous power sources. According to the original design, this radar station should be located in the far north of the USSR in the Franz Josef Land area in order to achieve the maximum warning time. This project, unique and complex, underwent a number of improvements, withstood the competition with the alternative project NIIDAR. Only April 14, 1975 was set up the creation of the radar "Daryal" in existing locations (Pechora, Gabala).
The reduced version of the receiving station was successfully tested in the trans-polar area near Pechora. In 1984-1985, the nodes with the Daryal radars were placed on combat duty in the north (Olenegorsk) and in Azerbaijan (Mingechaur).
Next turn it was decided to build on the improved project 90N6 "Daryal-U" . The main designer of the radar was appointed Alexander Vasiliev, since 1972, headed the development of the Daugava radar receiver. The station was characterized by a reduced power potential and increased management capabilities, as well as a halved number of transmitter elements. Increased resolving power in range, noise immunity, optimized distribution of radiated energy. The radar received a new computer complex based on the multiprocessor M-13 computer (2.4 billion operations per second).
The end of the 1960s can be considered the beginning of the creation of not only a missile warning system, but also an RKO as a whole. In 1970, Deputy Minister of Radio Industry of the USSR Vladimir Markov, who headed the Ministry of Radiophiles in the work on missile defense, missile warning and SCCP, adopted a revolutionary decision to establish the Central Research and Production Association "Vympel", whose task was to carry out practically the whole range of works on the missile- space defense. The structure of Vympel includes several enterprises of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the main of which were RTI, NIIDAR, Radio Instrument Making Institute, Dneprovsky Machine Building Plant, Southern Radio Factory, Gomel Radio Plant, System Programming Bureau and the Scientific and Thematic Center, which was entrusted with a leading role on the creation of missile warning, missile defense and missile defense systems in Moscow, as well as the command posts of these systems.
Since that time, the history of the development and creation of all systems of RKO has become the history of the TsNPO "Vympel". The basis of STC TsNPO "Vympel" was made by the employees of the OKB "Vympel". In addition to them, a number of leading employees from the RTI of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and NIIDAR were transferred to NTC TsNPO "Vympel", which subsequently created the basis for the development of the SPRN. Among these employees were the current Chief Designers of the funds Traubenberg VP, Grigoriev AL, Volobuev AV, Shakhovtsev SS. and others. One of the leading members of the theoretical department, headed by G.P. Tartakovski, was appointed chief designer of the SPRN. Doctor of technical sciences. Repin VG, who together with the young graduates of MFTI Kurikshy AA, Menshikov AV, Morozov VG, Bakut PA, leading employees of the scientific and technological center Golovkin BA, Kuznetsov IN , Zelnikov IP, Shirokov VV and others together with the staff transferred from the RTI of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and NIIDAR began to develop the missile warning system.
Day October 29, 1976 was the birthday of the national missile warning system. The system in the command post of the SPRN, the units RO-1 (Murmansk), RO-2 (Riga), OS-1 (Irkutsk) and OS-2 (Balkhash) were put on alert duty at the Dnepr radar base. For the successful accomplishment of this task, a group of leading developers and creators of the SPRN was awarded with orders and medals, and the main designer of the system Vladislav Repin was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
Since that time, the era of improvement and development of the system began in accordance with the conceptual design of the 1972 draft. On July 19, 1978, in order to improve the tactical and technical characteristics of the system on the main missile-hazardous area, the adopted "Daugava" 1 (Murmansk). Antenna "Daugava" supplemented the receiving part of the "Dnepr", which increased the noise immunity and survivability of the complex.
On January 16, 1979, the Soviet Army adopted a space system for detecting ballistic missile launches from US missile bases. At the same time two more Dnepr radars were put on combat duty at the nodes of RO-4 (Sevastopol) and RO-5 (Mukachevo), which provided the possibility of control of the south-western direction. Practically at the same time, the head sample of the complex of means for bringing and displaying information of the "Crocus" warning was put into operation, thanks to which instant automatic information transmission to the consumers was realized.
In the mid-1980s, building of new Daryal-U and Volga radars began at the Dnepr radar positions in Latvia (Skrunda), Belarus (Baranovichi), Ukraine (Mukachevo), Kazakhstan (Balkhash), and Siberia (Irkutsk). Western press reports in December 1988 claiming that one of two new radars identified by Western intelligence was located in Sevastopol / Nikolaeyev were in error, confusing the new Pechora radars with the existing HEN HOUSE at Nikolaev.
The first station of this type was commissioned in the Komi Republic (near Pechora) in 1984. A year later Daryal station in Mingechaur (Azerbaijan) joined the system. Later an upgraded Daryal-U was built near Irkutsk. A similar system was being built near Balkhash Lake [some sources suggest that a prototype Pechora radar was constructed at Sary Shagan from 1977 to 1982]. The improved Daryal-UM in Mukachevo and Skrunda were not put into operation. Construction of the first station was suspended, and the unfinished building of the second was destroyed in accordance with the Russian-Latvian agreement.
The lead radar of this line was started in the area of Yeniseysk (near Krasnoyarsk) in 1980. Prior to that, the districts of Yakutsk and Norilsk were considered, but they fell for transport, energy and economic reasons. The Daryal-UM station in Yeniseysk-15 could have filled the gap in the integrated radar field in the north-east. Construction of the new Yeniseysk-15 radar node started at Yeniseysk near Krasnoyarsk for the creation of an uninterrupted radar field on the external border of the USSR in the northeastern missile danger zones. The building of a new radar near Yeniseysk infringed on the ABM treaty, and was subsequently halted.
Building a structure such as this radar requires a stable subsoil that is unavailable east of Krasnoyarsk. The heat generated by the radar would melt the upper levels of permafrost, rendering the foundations unstable. The Krasnoyarsk site marks the eastern boundary of continuous [year-round] permafrost with a thickness greater than three hundred meters. The Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk coastal areas have discontinuous permafrost, while further inland a belt of continuous permafrost has a depth of less than three hundred meters. Former air force general Boris T. Surikov claimed that the radar at Krasnoyarsk was originally planned to be sited at Noril'sk, inland from the Arctic Ocean, but less further inland than the Pechora LPAR. The cost of building on the permafrost, however, was estimated to be around a billion rubles (1979). By moving outside the permafrost zone, costs were reduced to around 350 million rubles. A site further north would have been remote from the rail transport infrastructure that was associated with the construction of previous LPARs at Pechora, Lyaki, Olenogorsk, Sary Shagan, and Mishelevka.
In 1988, when the Reagan administration complained that a large, phased-array radar located near Krasnoyarsk (Siberia) violated the 1972 US-Soviet ABM Treaty, the Soviet military denied the US charge, claiming that the radar's sole purpose was to track artificial Earth satellites and other space objects. Shevardnadze's 1989 decision to comply with the American demand to dismantle the radar made him an enemy of the military establishment, which considered the decision to dismantle the radar as capitulation to the United States and a threat to Soviet security.
An even more advanced version of Daryal-UM was also designed (also developed by Victor Ivantsov), which had a 110-degree azimuth survey sector, an improved transmitter design, and a reduction in edge losses in the receiver. According to this type, two radars were planned to be built in 1986: in Skrund (Latvian SSR) and in Mukacheve (object Berehovo, Western Ukraine). The radar in Skrunda was not completed by the time of the collapse of the USSR and in 1995 it was blown up. The radar station in Mukacheve was also not completed, it was dismantled in the 2000s . In accordance with the intergovernmental agreement, the obsolete Dnestr-M radar in Skrunda worked until 1998, and then it had to be dismantled within 18 months. The new Daryal radar built nearby was blown up on 04 May 1995.
Russian authorities hoped to complete the unfinished radar in Belarus to compensate for the loss in Latvia, but the prospects were initially uncertain. Most sources agree that the radar at Baranovichi (Baranovicha) in Belarus is designated "Volga" -- with some sources claiming it is "a fundamentally new type over-the-horizon detection station" while other sources suggest it is a standard Daryal and that the Volga nomenclature is simply the code name for this particular project. In August 1999 it was announced that Russia would refurbish this radar and put it back in service in 2000. Although it was initially announced that the radar would become operational by the end of 2000, tests continued in fall 2001, when it was anticipated that the station would be put into operation by the end of the year.
In September 1999, the Clinton administration offered to help Russia complete a key radar site and to share American early warning data, if Russia agreed to renegotiate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty so the US could build a National Missile Defense. Under the proposal, the United States would provide tens of millions of dollars to complete the partially constructed radar at Mishelevka, 60 miles northwest of Irkutsk, which is oriented eastward, covering northern Asia, including North Korea and the Arctic. Another possibility involved helping Russia regain use of the radar in Lyaki, Azerbaijan. Under the American plan, the Lyaki station might be jointly manned with the Russians, though the proposal had not been negotiated with the Government of Azerbaijan.
In January 2001, Ukraine's Supreme Rada ratified the agreement between the Ukrainian and Russian governments of the systems of warning about missile attack and outer space control. This document underlies the general principles of using missile attack warning systems and means of exercising control in outer space in Ukraine and Russia. It also sets the order of operation of technological centers in Mukachevo and Sevastopol and of provision of funds for their development and modernization. Ukraine keeps its radar sets in permanent readiness and constantly sends information about missile and space situation from the Mukachevo [Pechora] and Sevastopol [Nikolaeyev HEN HOUSE] centers to the command post, the document said. Russia also transmits information to Ukraine from its own command post overseeing the operation of missile attack warning systems and means of outer space control in the territory of Russia. It also provides regular reports on space situation and space facilities. The ratification was supported by 262 to 4 votes of 357 deputies registered in the session hall.
Sources and Methods
- 50 YEARS OF THE MINTS RADIOTECHNICAL INSTITUTE Victor Sloka Military Parade July-August 1996
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