Main Centre for Reconnaissance of Situation in Space
The 821st Main Centre for Reconnaissance of Situation in Space (Russian: Главный центр разведки космической обстановки, tr. GTsRKO[2]) is the headquarters of the Russian military's space surveillance network, SKKP.[note 1] The centre is part of the Russian Space Forces and receives intelligence from a network of reporting stations which includes the Russian missile attack early warning network as well as some stations only used for space surveillance such as Okno and Krona.[6][7]
The purpose of the SKKP is to detect satellites, identify them and to discern their orbits. It maintains the Russian catalogue of space objects and provides data which could be used to support space launches, feed an anti-satellite programme and provide intelligence on hostile military satellites. It is the Russian equivalent of the United States Space Surveillance Network.[6][7]
The centre is based in the military village of Noginsk-9 (Russian: Ногинск-9) about a kilometer to the south-west of the village of Dubrovo near Noginsk in Moscow Oblast.[8] It was previously known as TsKKP (Цккп) from Russian: Центр контроля космического пространства, tr. Tsentr kontrolya kosmicheskogo prostranstva meaning 'centre for space monitoring'.[9]
The idea of a space monitoring system originated in 1963 and the design was agreed upon in 1965. From the beginning it included civilian astronomical stations run by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The system needed to detect, identify and track satellites and create a satellite catalogue.[5] The first satellite detection system consisted of eight Dnestr radars, four at Mishelevka in Siberia and four at Balkhash in the Kazakh SSR which provided information for the Istrebitel Sputnikov anti-satellite system.[10][11]
Construction on the centre began in 1965 and in 1968 a 5E51 computer was installed. The first part of the centre was placed on alert in 1970 and became operational in 1972, as part of the Soviet Air Defences.[10][11]
In 1974 plans to link up the space surveillance centre with the missile warning centre and missile defence radars were realised. There were several problems with this. One significant issue was that they used different co-ordinate systems. A drawback of linking the early warning radars to the space surveillance centre was that it caused data on thousands of routine objects to be sent to the centre, overwhelming it with data.[10]
