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Perestroika and glasnost in the soviet space programme
Perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet space programme A personal view
Geoffrey E. Perry For many years the world-famous Kettering Group of amateur satellite observers have confounded many more 'officlal' organizations with their accuracy in tracking Soviet space launches. In this article the group's founder, Geoffrey E. Perry, MBE, presents his personal parspectlve on current developments in the Soviet space programme. The USSR's Increased openness about nonsensitive Issues Is to be welcomed, he concludes, but the Kettering Group has work to do yet. Geoffrey E. Perry, MBE, is consultant to Independent Television News, London. He can be contacted at Perrys, Bencoolen Road, Bude, Cornwall, EX23 8PJ, UK.
I'A series of artificial Earth satellites will be launched from different cosmodromes of the Soviet Union during 1962.' Tass, 16 March 1962, 1701 GMT. 2"l'he two sites were the Baikonur cosmodrome, situated some 370 km southwest of the station stop of that name on quite a different railway line, and the Volgograd Station or, less precisely, 'from the middle latitudes of the European part of the USSR'. Moscow home service, 28 August 1981, 0900 GMT. :el'ass, 26 August 1974, 2317 GMT.
This is a very personal view of how the advent of perestroika and Soviet system during recent years has affected their space programmes, their relationships with other countries in space matters and the ways in which their media deal with space events. In order to appreciate the changes it will be useful to remind oneself of the attitudes which prevailed in the past. Since 1962 the majority of Soviet space missions have been cloaked in the secrecy of the cover-all Cosmos label. Launch vehicles were only very rarely identified and, although the announcement of the inauguration of the Cosmos programme implied that more than one launch site would be employed, 1 only two sites were occasionally mentioned in launch announcements. 2 Official Soviet announcements seldom contained deliberate lies but were often ambiguous and hardly ever conveyed the whole truth. Examples of this can be found in an account of the two-day mission of Soyuz 15 in 1974. We had expected a manned launch to the new Salyut 3 space station as early as 22 August but it did not happen. Four days later, when the 'window' opened again, I went to the laboratory at Kettering Grammar School, hoping to pick up short wave signals soon after a launch. Although I was not successful, a Kettering Group member in Sweden did hear weak signals shortly after 2115 BST. I telephoned ITN but they did not use the story due to the shortened news bulletin on a Bank Holiday. We received signals in Kettering at 2206 BST and I telephoned the BBC and the Daily Mirror, neither of whom were interested. Meanwhile our Swedish colleagues had been more successful in breaking the news and Reuters contacted me for comment and confirmation. They promised to let me know when Moscow announced the launch and called again at 0030 BST on 27 August to tell me that it had just been announced. 3 Four hours later I was up again listening to the telemetry from Salyut 3 and Soyuz 15 and watching Soyuz 15 and its rocket passing through the constellation of Orion.
glasnost within the
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'*Moscow home service, 28 August 1974, 0700 GMT. 5G. Perry, Guardian, 29 August 1974, p11. 6Tass, 30 August 1974, 0520 GMT. 7The first representatives of Western business circles who were permitted to visit the cosmodrome were from Inmarsat and British Aerospace during October 1987: Novosti Press Agency, London, USSR Space Bulletin SB21, 21 October 1987, p 10. However, Arthur Dula, President of the Space Commerce Corporation of Houston, TX, was later described as the first businessman to visit Baikonur: Tass, 26 November 1987, 1152 GMT. The Indian ambassador and a delegation of West German businessmen were present at the launch of the Indian IRS-1A satellite: Soviet television, 17 March 1988, 0630 GMT. Preparations for the launch of the Soviet-Bulgarian space crew and a Progress cargo craft at the Baikonur cosmodrome were witnessed by 76 foreign journalists: Soviet television, 18 May 1988, 0230 GMT. The following day they witnessed the launch of a topographical satellite in the Cosmos series: News at Ten, fiN, 19 May 1988. Defence Minister Dzhurov of Bulgaria was present at the launch of Soyuz-TM 5 carrying a Bulgarian cosmonaut: Soviet television, 7 June 1988, 1255 GMT. Representatives of American, FR German, Italian and British companies engaged in space launch risk insurance witnessed the launch of Phobos 2: Tass, 13 July 1988, 1241 GMT. President Mitterrand of France was present at the launch of Soyuz-TM 7 carrying a French cosmonaut: Soviet television, 26 November 1988, 1515 GMT. 8V. Gubarev, Pravda, 6 June 1983, p 3. 9G.E. Perry, Flight International, 21 April 1966, p 670. I°G.E. Perry, Flight International, 10 November 1966, p 817.
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On the following day at (1415 BST 1 switched on my bedside receiver again, expecting to find that Soyuz 15 had docked with Salyut 3. However, the telemetry from the space station suggested that the docking had not taken place and there were no signals from the Soyuz. On looking out of the bedroom window I saw the Soyuz in the constellation of Cetus, followed by Salyut 3. Obviously something was wrong, but who wants to know at 4.30 am? At 0800 BST the Moscow home service reported that, during manoeuvring, Soyuz 15 approached the Salyut 3 space station many times but the cosmonauts were concluding the flight and preparing for the return to Earth. 4 Writing in a national newspaper, 1 showed that the launch time had suggested a flight duration of between three and four weeks and that the curtailment, due to the inability of a standard Soyuz to sustain a manned flight for more than 48 hours plus a comfortable safety margin, had necessitated the first ever night-time landing of a Soviet manned spacecraft. ~ The post-flight press conference at Zvezdniy G o r o d o k made no reference to an intention to dock with Salyut 3 and the night-time landing was explained as a development to accommodate the requirement for the ability to fly at any time of the year, in any weather, and at any time of day or nightJ'
Launch sites Military use of the launch sites dictated the secrecy surrounding their locations. The first outsider to visit the Baikonur cosmodrome was President De Oaulle, accompanied only by his personal physician, to view the launch of Cosmos 122 in June 1966. Four years later President Pompidou was present at the launch of Cosmos 368. The joint ApolloSoyuz Test Project (ASTP) in 1975 opened up the launch site to three parties of American astronauts and technicians but these were flown in and out during the hours of darkness. In recent years the cosmodrom¢ has been opened to businessmen regarded as potential customers for launch vehicles and launch services, heads of state at times of launch of foreign cosmonauts on international missions to the Salyut 7 and Mir space stations, and the Western media for the launches of Cosmos 1944 and the Phobos probes to Mars and its natural satellite] The Volgograd Station, or Kapustin Yar as it is known in the West, was visited by scientists from Eastern bloc countries working with the Soviets under the Intercosmos programme for scientific payloads which began in 1969. Engineers from Sweden, India and France have also visited Kapustin Yar in connection with the launches of their own payloads and experiments. An article entitled 'Kapustin Yar: a look through the years' appeared in Pravda in 1983. 8 I have always felt a personal involvement with the third Soviet launch site in the north of the USSR close to the Arctic Circle. When Cosmos 112 was launched on 17 March 1966 it flew at a new inclination to the Equator and the signal quality and transmission characteristics were significantly different from anything that we had encountered before. 1 quickly realized from a consideration of its ground tracks that it could not have been launched from either of the two known sites and wrote a letter to the editor of Flight International asserting that a new launch site had been brought into use. 9 The launch of Cosmos 129 at a different inclination enabled me to deduce its approximate location, lO Over the
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years Plesetsk became the most used launch site in the world and, although certain launches from there were visible from Sweden and Finland and the launch pads showed up clearly in Landsat imagery, 11 its existence was not officially acknowledged until 1983.12 Intercosmos 8 was launched from Plesetsk in 1972 and experts of countries taking part in the Intercosmos programme have participated in the preparations for subsequent launches. The delegation at the launch of the IntercosmosBulgaria 1300 satellite included Georgiy Ivanov, the Bulgarian cosmonaut. 13 With the changes in attitude there is now even talk of arranging tourist visits to the Baikonur cosmodrome. According to Anatoliy Yakolev of the Soviet Committee on Foreign Tourism, 'space tours' will include visits to the cosmodrome on a regular basis from next year, two or three times a month and timed to coincide with satellite launches. Seven-day 'space tours' currently feature trips to Moscow, Kaluga and Leningrad with visits to the cosmonauts' training centre at Zvezdniy Gorodok, the mission control centre at Kaliningrad, and museums, and more than 1000 visitors from the West went on these tours during the first few months they were organized. 14
Launch vehicles As with the launch sites, military associations dictated secrecy over the launch vehicles used in the space programme. Nearly ten years elapsed between the launch of Sputnik 1 and the unveiling of the standard launch vehicle at the 1967 Paris Air Show. Later that year the small rocket which inaugurated the Cosmos programme from Kapustin Yar was put on display in the Space Exhibition at the Museum of Economic Achievement in Moscow. Whereas these launch vehicles were developments of ballistic missiles, the Proton rocket, which made its debut in 1965, was the product of a civilian design bureau. However, the first clear views of the Proton to be seen in the West were to be found in the television coverage of the launches of the two Vega spacecraft to Venus and Comet Halley at the end of 1984. Subsequently, prompted by the desire to market the Proton as a commercial venture, considerable detail has been made available in books and brochures. 15 The commercial thrust also led to the revelation of the name 'Tsyklon' for the booster known in the West as the F-2 or SL-14 in a Glavkosmos briefing. 16 11Aviation Week & Space Technology, 8 The introduction of the largest booster, Energiya, was conducted with April 1974, pp 18-20. 12V. Gubarev, Pravda, 20 June 1983, p 3. full media treatment. When General Secretary Gorbachev visited the 13Moscow home service, 7 August 1981, Baikonur cosmodrome on 11-13 May 1987, the report of his visit stated 1700 GMT. that preparations were under way for the launch of a new all-purpose ~4Tass, 30 June 1989. ~SKosmonavtika Entsiklopediya, Moscow, carrier rocket capable of delivering to LEO both reusable ships and 1985, p 307; Kosmonavtika CCCP, Machi- large-scale research and commercial craft, including modules for orbitnostroyeniye, Moscow, 1986, pp 112, 147, 148-149, 216, 415, 426, 433, 439 and ing space laboratories.17 News of the launch at 1730 GMT on 15 May 479; 'Soviet launch vehicle Proton for in- was delayed until the following day. 18 In the event it was something less jecting satellite in geostationary orbit', than a complete success in that the payload did not achieve orbit but it Vneshtoryizdat, Izd No 5644M, VTI zak was stressed that the Energiya had fulfilled all its aims and objectives. 7287 (nd). ISAviation Week & Space Technology, 1 Although television viewers in the UK were treated only to brief June 1987, p 13. glimpses of the stack on the pad in daylight and the night-time launch ~TMoscow home service, 13 May 1987, due to the abbreviated Saturday night news bulletins, Soviet television 1400 GMT. ~STass, 16 May 1987, 1555 GMT. showed a full-length feature, running for nearly ten minutes, which
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Perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet space programme revealed considerable detail including shots of tulips and horses on the steppes! 19 Even m o r e detail was shown on the occasion of the first launch of the air-space plane Buran 20 and Buran itself was displayed at the Paris Air Show last July. el The RD-17(I engines of the strap-ons for Energiya which form the first stage of the new Zenit launch vehicle were also displayed at the show along with scale models of all the launch vehicles G l a v k o s m o s are offering for sale.
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19Soviet television, 16 May 1987, 1700 GMT. 2°Soviet television, 23 October 1988, 1530 GMT; 25 October 1988, 1530 GMT; 26 October 1988, 1414 GMT; 29 October 1988, 1800 GMT; 15 November 1988, 0651 GMT. mAviation Week & Space Technology, 12 June 1989, cover and pp 61, 65; 19 June 1989, pp 46-47, 50-51, 53.
22Operation Morning Light, Canadian North West Territories, US Department of Energy, Washington, DC, 1978.
23Daily Telegraph, 7 January 1983. 24pravda, 8 January 1983, 2nd ed, p 2. 25Soviettelevision, 15 January 1983, 1400 GMT.
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The U S S R began operating satellites equipped with radar for probing the ocean surface to determine ship locations in 1967. The satellites, flying in near-circular orbits at a height of 260 km and 65 ° inclination, are known in the West as R O R S A T S . At the end of the active phase of their missions the payload is separated from the final stage of the carrier rocket and the orbit is raised to 1000 km so that their radioactive power source may be ' p a r k e d ' out of h a r m ' s way. In-orbit failures of this mechanism have caused international concern on three occasions. On 8 O c t o b e r 1977 Cosmos 952, which had been operating in conjunction with Cosmos 954, was transferred to the 'safe' orbit. A n d r e w Driver, a junior pupil at Kettering G r a m m a r School, was detailed to follow the progress of Cosmos 954. At the beginning of N o v e m b e r he told me that it had stopped making the m i c r o m a n o e u v r e s which were characteristic of the operational phase and had entered a regime of natural decay. On 6 January 1978 the rate of decay increased dramatically and it decayed in the a t m o s p h e r e on 24 January, spreading its radioactive debris over a wide area of northern Canada. 22 The p r o g r a m m e was resumed following a system redesign in 198(i. The next mishap occurred on 28 D e c e m b e r 1982 when, at the end of the active phase of its mission, Cosmos 1402 split into three components, all of which remained in the 260 km orbit. The world's media became aware of the situation on 5 January 1983 and, mindful of the Cosmos 954 incident, gave it m a x i m u m attention. This produced one instance of an untruth in an official Soviet statement although this was probably due to ignorance rather than to a deliberate desire to mislead. The next day, in response to questions from Western journalists at the Moscow press conference held in honour of the record-breaking Salyut 7 cosmonauts, Academician Kotelnikov denied that there was any problem with Cosmos 1402. That night, after a day of m a n y telephone queries, a newspaper reporter asked me to c o m m e n t on Kotelnikov's r e m a r k and, without thinking, I replied that it was 'a pack of lies'. To my horror I was reported accurately in the following day's edition with 'Pack of Lies' as a subtitle .23 I was greatly relieved when it was admitted that the satellite was out of control. This report emphasized that all precautions had been taken to ensure that no parts reached the E a r t h ' s surface. 24 One piece, catalogued by N O R A D as 'B', decayed rapidly. We soon realized that piece ' C ' was decaying at a slower rate than piece ' A ' and the reason for this became clear when the Director of the Moscow Physico-Technical Institute, Oleg Belotserkovskiy, disclosed on Soviet television that the two remaining pieces were the main section of the satellite and the fuel core of its nuclear reactor. 25 Piece ' C ' with its greater density was obviously the separated fuel core. Both pieces decayed in the atmosphere over the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans. In fairness, one must
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admit that the USSR had lodged a document with the United Nations describing steps taken to prevent another contamination incident such as had occurred with Cosmos 954 in which separation of the fuel core to ensure total ablation by aerodynamic processes during re-entry had been given as one possibility, but no definite solution had been identified26 and the document was not widely known. The most recent occasion was concerned with Cosmos 1900 last year. Launched at the end of 1987, it made the characteristic micromanoeuvres maintaining its orbital period at a slightly greater value than the standard 89.65 min, until 10 April 1988, thereafter entering a regime of natural decay. Although I expressed my concern to various bodies, I waited until the period had decreased to below 89.65 min before openly speculating that it was out of control. 27 Following this, the Soviets admitted that Cosmos 1900 had a nuclear power plant on board and that contact with the satellite had been lost in April. It would remain in orbit until August-September, after which it would cease to exist. It was equipped with systems ensuring radiation safety on completion of the flight. 28 A later report stated that the nuclear power plant would be automatically withdrawn from the satellite when its systems reached 'pre-set levels of operation'. It continued by saying that if the automatic system failed a system for the separation of the nuclear reactor into parts would be activated on the entry of the satellite into the atmosphere. 29 In the event, this was what happened. The orbit decayed naturally until late on 30 September when its orbital period had decreased to 87 min. At that point the forces of atmospheric drag triggered the mechanism that caused the satellite to split and lift the radioactive part to a higher orbit, somewhat short of the standard 'safe' orbit but high enough to prolong its life for the order of 100 years. At the time of writing (July 1989) the programme has not been resumed. Although the Soviets were much more open in the matter of Cosmos 1900 they failed to announce it in the month which elapsed between its malfunction and the breaking of the story on ITN.
Admissions of failure
AC.105/C.1/WG.V/L. 10, 25 January 1980. 27Newsat Ten, ITN, London, 10 May 1988, 2100 GMT. 2e'rass, 13 May 1988, 1100 GMT. 2e'rass, 8 June 1988, 0746 GMT.
Strict control of the media during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras ensured that no hint of failure ever reached the world from Soviet sources and the Soviet people were kept in ignorance through suppression of Western analyses which revealed failures when they did occur. The Cosmos label was used to disguise interplanetary and lunar missions which failed to leave Earth orbit, and Molniya communication satellites and Meteor meteorological satellites which experienced electronic failure before becoming operational. The reluctance to admit a docking failure with Soyuz 15 has already been noted. This policy had the desired effect of producing an impression in the minds of the general public that the Soviet space programme was totally successful whereas the frequent US failures of the early years, carried out in the glare of publicity, were patently not so. Few people today are aware that between the successful launches of the first two Sputniks in October and November 1957 and the launch of Luna 1, which failed to achieve its mission of impacting the Moon in January 1959, there were three failed lunar attempts and a Sputnik failure during 1958 to set against the solitary successful launch of Sputnik 3. Yet, no doubt, they were aware of some at least of the nine US Vanguard, Explorer and Beacon failures within the same period.
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2S'Questions relating to the use of nuclear power sources in outer space', USSR working paper, UN General Assembly N
Perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet space programme
Of course, it was impossible to hush up major disasters such as the deaths of Vladimir Komarov and of Georgiy Dobrovolskiy, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev during the return from orbit of Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11, but doubts still persist as to the cause of the Soyuz l accident and only US insistence during the preparations for the ASTP produced the complete explanation for the depressurization of Soyuz 11. Nowadays, with international involvement in major programmes, an element of failure is more readily admitted. This was particularly evident in the attempts to dock Kvant with Mir 3~ and the EVA to repair the Anglo-Dutch X-ray telescope on Kvant. 3~ Consequently, justifiable pride was shown in each case when the tasks were successfully completed. 32 The failures of the two Phobos probes were reported without undue delay33 and subsequent analyses were not without self-criticism. ~4
Self-criticism
a°Tass, 5 April 1987, 0651 GMT; 9 April 1987, 0846 GMT. 31Tass, 30 June 1988, 1407 GMT. 32mass,12 April 1987,0215 GMT; Moscow home service, 20 October 1988, 1100 GMT. 33mass,9 September 1988, 0925 GMT; 29 March 1989, 1546 GMT. 34Radio Moscow in English for Great Britain and Ireland, 12 October 1988, 2000 GMT; Tass, 15 April 1989, 1425 GMT; Moscow world service in English, 17 April 1989, 1100 GMT. 35The writer complained that the system fell far short of being adapted to the needs of the USSR in that equipment installed in stations for receiving signals from space had not been perfected and did not permit the coordinates of the disaster victims to be computed quickly and precisely. It was claimed that rescue teams usually obtained their information from tracking stations of other countries and that malfunctions occurred regularly in Soviet stations' apparatus. He had formed the impression that 'the people responsible for operating the Soviet part of the system were in too much of a hurry to report its commissioning'. Sovetskaya Rossiya, 20 August 1987, p 4. aePravda, 5 October 1988, p 3. aTPravda, 25 March 1989, p 3. 381zvestiya, 28 April 1988, p 3. Sagdeev was replaced as head of IKI during 1988. At a press conference in Moscow on 18 January 1989, Dunayev, head of Glavkosmos, claimed that he had asked to be released from the post and that, following elections, he was succeeded by Corresponding Member Galleyev. Sagdeev was said to be still working in IKI, leading a large group of scientists working on systems analysis of space research.
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Glasnost has allowed Soviet individuals to criticize aspects of their space programme. One of the first examples of this which came to my notice was in connection with the international Cospas-Sarsat search and rescue system. 35 Even more startling was a statement in an account of the radar remote sensing mission of Cosmos 1870, launched in 1987, which said, 'Soviet cosmonautics, like other fields of our work in the 1970s and early 1980s, was affected by forces of stagnation and retardation. The s a t e l l i t e . . , was ready for launching about seven years ago, but the launch was cancelled because of intrigues against the director of the satellite's development. Personnel of industry and the eosmodrome who preserved the satellite and its equipment intact, contrary to "instructions", should receive due credit for their courage. ,36 In a newspaper interview, Lt-Gen Vladimir Shatalov, chief of the cosmonaut training centre, called for better organization of Soviet space efforts. Pointing out that, although certain elements were present, they did not have an overall, well-organized and permanently operating body equivalent to NASA, he remarked that this was not beneficial for cosmonautics. The head scientific associate of the Institute of Space Research (IKI) blamed the lack of communication between the Academy of Sciences and the Soviet aerospace industry for the design of the two Phobos spacecraft, leading to limited payload and data transmission capabilities. He said that plans for the proposed mission to Mars in 1994 were proceeding with 'striking laxity'. 37 In a lengthy newspaper article, Academician Sagdeev, who was at the time the director of IKI, criticized the organization of Soviet science and the emphasis on manned space programmes. In particular he directed his criticism at research planning practices, rules governing the tenure of science officials, and the oversized and unwieldy staffs of many research institutes. He derided the quality and quantity of computer technology at the disposal of academy research personnel and engineers. He claimed that had IKI not promptly begun developing special homemade computers to process the results of the encounters of the Vega probes with Comet Halley, they could not have kept up with computer instruction of the ESA's Giotto which flew by the comet only a few days later. 3~
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Commercialization
39"l'he fees for placing a spacecraft into geosynchronous transfer orbit or directly into geosynchronous orbit are $28 million and $35 million respectively - less than half those charged by Arianespace and the US commercial launch industry and only slightly dearer than those demanded by China's Great Wall Industry Corporation. Launches into low Earth orbit cost $10 million for Tsyklon, $14 million for Vostok or $15 million for Soyuz boosters.
4°Soviet Communication Satellite Gorizont, V/O Licensintorg, Minskaya str 11, 121108, Moscow. 41An Austrian cosmonaut will take part in a flight to the Mir space station in 1992 at a cost to Austria of the order of 150 million Schillings: Tass, 5 April 1988, 1527 GMT. On the day prior to the launch of Soyuz-TM 7, carrying the French cosmonaut to Mir, a protocol was signed on a scientific programme to place French instruments on Soviet orbital stations. It envisaged a series of missions by French cosmonauts lasting one month, at perhaps two-year intervals: Radio Moscow International in French, 26 November 1988, 1500 GMT. Alexander Dunayev, Chairman of Glavkosmos, and Valeriy Ignatov, Chairman of Licensintorg, signed an agreement with Kiichi Nakamura, President of the Japanese TBS television network, and Hiroshi Ota, President of TBS News, to send a Japanese pressman into outer space as a member of a Soviet crew on board Mir: Tass, 27 March 1989. This provoked a storm of protest from interested Soviet pressmen: Tass, 31 March 1989. Advertisements using the headline, 'Astronaut wanted. No experience necessary', calling for applicants to be a British astronaut on a flight to Mir in 1991 were placed in newspapers and magazines following simultaneous press conferences in Moscow and London. The £16 million cost was to be recouped by the sale of sponsorship and merchandising packages, the sale of payload space for scientific experiments, and broadcasting rights: 'Project Juno' media information kit, Granard Rowland Communications, London, 29 June 1989. The organizers received more than 12 000 inquiries before the closing date: Daily Telegraph, London, 15 July 1989. 42B. Kovonvalov, 'Space and money', Izvestiya, 7 June 1988. 43yu. Vykhodtsev, Tass, Berne, 29 March 1989. 44S. Leskov, 'Space and the kopeck', Izvestiya, 22 March 1989, p 2. ~Moscow home service, 12 April 1989, 1700 GMT; Pravda, 13 April 1989.
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A major initiative of the Gorbachev administration was the creation of the 'civil' space agency, Glavkosmos, in October 1985. Glavkosmos is responsible for overseeing space science, the space station programme and commercial activities - the non-military aspects of the space programme. Glavkosmos, through the Soviet foreign trade agency, Licensintorg, offers launch services on all of their launch vehicles, including Zenit and Energiya, 39 an annual lease of transponders or a complete Gorizont communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit, 4° flight opportunities for materials processing on recoverable Foton spacecraft and the Mir space station, and, most recently, flight opportunities for foreign cosmonauts on short visits to Mir. 41 One of the first overt indications that commercialization was playing a part in the Soviet manned spaceflight programme was the appearance of advertising panels for Bulgarian and Soviet organizations during tests for the launch of Soyuz-TM 5, carrying the second Bulgarian cosmonaut, in June 1988. 42 The Swiss advertising agency, Punto, signed an agreement with Glavkosmos and Licensintorg for two panels, 2 m x 3 m, to be painted on the hull of Mir. Advertising patches and signs would be placed on spacesuits worn by cosmonauts and hoardings would be mounted at launch pads. The cost of an advertising package would be of the order of $620 000 (1 million Swiss Francs). 43 Advertising was to be one of the sources of finance for Project Juno. Closely linked with the move towards commercialization has been the call for value for money. This was particularly true at the time of the elections to the new Congress. 44 To one who has for many years been quoting figures from official Soviet sources for costs and benefits of various of the Soviet space programmes, the Cosmonautics Day observation, by Academician Mikhail Reshetnev, that Soviet citizens' unfamiliarity with their national space programme was hampering their appreciation of its potential came as something of a surprise. Presumably, statements issued for the benefit of foreign listeners to Radio Moscow's world service and readers of Soviet material produced for publication in foreign countries have not been made available to the Soviet public. This surely demonstrates a breakdown in public relations. In acknowledging the Soviet public's recent doubts about 'the expediency of expenditure on space research' and questions about 'the wisdom of developing many space projects at the current stage of restructuring when the country is dealing with great problems, for instance ecological, food, housing and other problems, which require huge material expenses', he speculated that they were caused by insufficient information being available to the Soviet public about the ways cosmonautics had been developing, its priorities and the potential of its achievements for the national economy. He said that it could be explained, to a considerable degree, by the fact that space science and technology had been created on the basis of advances in defence industries and rocket technology, which naturally were classified - explained but not justified. Saying that people wanted to know how and for what national funds were being spent and what results they yielded, he continued, 'I am sure that if they had been told that in 1988 the economic effect of applied branches of cosmonautics had exceeded the total annual spending on cosmonautics by approximately one-third, there would have been considerably fewer pronouncements of that kind. Cosmonautics is now on the verge of being self-financing.'45 285
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In an interview with S. Polovnikov, director general of the Komposite scientific production association, shown in the Vremya newscast, P. Orlov suggested that the technology shown had previously been concealed from their own people rather than from foreign competitors who either already possessed the technology themselves or were ready to purchase it from the USSR. He concluded by saying that, if it were up to him, he would invite those people's deputies who were proposing to cut back the appropriations for space programmes there to see for themselves. 4('
Secrecy Not only have we seen questioning and criticism of the Soviet space programme in recent years but one Soviet journalist has actually poked fun at the regime of secrecy which prevailed before glasnost. In describing the press conference following Yuriy Gagarin's historic flight in 1961 and Gagarin's answers to questions, sometimes after prolonged discussions with an accompanying academician, he points out that honest answers to those questions would hardly have weakened the USSR's defence capability. 47 He went on to criticize the accounts given at the time of the unforeseen landing of Voskhod 2 in the taiga, many miles from the intended recovery zone, and the 'salvage' of the Salyut 7 orbital station, which omitted much information. In noting that past errors in industry and agriculture are now openly admitted, he pondered the cost of failure to admit propaganda and ideological errors. He gave two examples of the folly of trying to impose secrecy on the timing of events relating to manned spaceflight: the wife of a colleague knew that a launch was imminent because she packed the special food which was always shipped to the cosmodrome a given number of days beforehand; and journalists in the Karaganda region knew when a landing was expected because electrical power would be cut off from overhead high-tension cables and the local communities and enterprises were informed in advance. 4s The change in attitude was referred to in an introduction to a recent interview with Yuriy Semenov, chief designer of spacecraft and space stations, which appeared under the title 'Where is Buran flying? '49 One aspect in which there has been some relaxation of secrecy of late can be seen in the giving of names to satellites in programmes which have hitherto been conducted under the cloak of the Cosmos label. In the field of remote sensing there was the name Okean for an oceanographic satellite in the series which, commencing with Cosmos 1500, use 46Soviet television, 21 May 1989, 1700 side-looking radar, and Resurs-F for satellites in the film-return series. GMT. 4~y.K. Golovanov, 'Cosmonautics in the whose products are offered for sale through Soyuzkarta. 5° Most recently mirror of glasnost', Kommunist, October there has been the use of the name Nadezhda (Hope) for a civil 1988, pp 23-31. navigation satellite of the Tsikada system, carrying Cospas-Sarsat 481bid. 49'Just a few years ago, perhaps even last transponders. year, such a conversation would have been unthinkable. Newspapers described original technological solutions and unique experiments in orbit. It was not acceptable to discuss the economic aspects of space science, even less so to compare efficacy with expenditures. The mist of departmental secrecy is dissipating and space science has learned to count its pennies.' G. Lomanov, Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya, 30 May 1989. S°Tass, 15 February 1989, 1535 GMT.
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Conclusion The increased openness about non-sensitive issues is to be welcomed. Advance announcements of the proposed timing of events related to the manned spaceflight programmes and speedy explanations of delays and complications have removed some of the challenge and excitement which has fuelled the Kettering Group and maintained their interest for more than 30 years. SPACE POLICY November 1989
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January 1989 supplement to The RAE Table of Earth Satellites, p 967.
Of course, the military programmes are still unidentified and one cannot help noting that the new trend has come at a time when the USA is classifying not only the names of certain programmes but also the orbital elements for some military spacecraft. Moreover, there is now a delay of a year or more before the basic data relating to such flights is lodged with the United Nations as required by international agreement. The value of such a policy is debatable because amateur observers are capable of determining the orbits from their visual observations and these are openly published. 51 The Kettering Group will continue to pursue their hobby of keeping watch on the Soviet space programme (and the closed programmes of other nations). Six years ago, in an interview for Readers Digest, I said, 'The only way to close us down at Kettering would be for them to adopt a policy of complete openness on all matters appertaining to outer space - and we think that most unlikely!'
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SlThe orbit for the secret payload deployed from the US Space Shuttle Atlantis on 2
December 1988 was published in the
Geoffrey E. Perry For many years the world-famous Kettering Group of amateur satellite observers have confounded many more 'officlal' organizations with their accuracy in tracking Soviet space launches. In this article the group's founder, Geoffrey E. Perry, MBE, presents his personal parspectlve on current developments in the Soviet space programme. The USSR's Increased openness about nonsensitive Issues Is to be welcomed, he concludes, but the Kettering Group has work to do yet. Geoffrey E. Perry, MBE, is consultant to Independent Television News, London. He can be contacted at Perrys, Bencoolen Road, Bude, Cornwall, EX23 8PJ, UK.
I'A series of artificial Earth satellites will be launched from different cosmodromes of the Soviet Union during 1962.' Tass, 16 March 1962, 1701 GMT. 2"l'he two sites were the Baikonur cosmodrome, situated some 370 km southwest of the station stop of that name on quite a different railway line, and the Volgograd Station or, less precisely, 'from the middle latitudes of the European part of the USSR'. Moscow home service, 28 August 1981, 0900 GMT. :el'ass, 26 August 1974, 2317 GMT.
This is a very personal view of how the advent of perestroika and Soviet system during recent years has affected their space programmes, their relationships with other countries in space matters and the ways in which their media deal with space events. In order to appreciate the changes it will be useful to remind oneself of the attitudes which prevailed in the past. Since 1962 the majority of Soviet space missions have been cloaked in the secrecy of the cover-all Cosmos label. Launch vehicles were only very rarely identified and, although the announcement of the inauguration of the Cosmos programme implied that more than one launch site would be employed, 1 only two sites were occasionally mentioned in launch announcements. 2 Official Soviet announcements seldom contained deliberate lies but were often ambiguous and hardly ever conveyed the whole truth. Examples of this can be found in an account of the two-day mission of Soyuz 15 in 1974. We had expected a manned launch to the new Salyut 3 space station as early as 22 August but it did not happen. Four days later, when the 'window' opened again, I went to the laboratory at Kettering Grammar School, hoping to pick up short wave signals soon after a launch. Although I was not successful, a Kettering Group member in Sweden did hear weak signals shortly after 2115 BST. I telephoned ITN but they did not use the story due to the shortened news bulletin on a Bank Holiday. We received signals in Kettering at 2206 BST and I telephoned the BBC and the Daily Mirror, neither of whom were interested. Meanwhile our Swedish colleagues had been more successful in breaking the news and Reuters contacted me for comment and confirmation. They promised to let me know when Moscow announced the launch and called again at 0030 BST on 27 August to tell me that it had just been announced. 3 Four hours later I was up again listening to the telemetry from Salyut 3 and Soyuz 15 and watching Soyuz 15 and its rocket passing through the constellation of Orion.
glasnost within the
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'*Moscow home service, 28 August 1974, 0700 GMT. 5G. Perry, Guardian, 29 August 1974, p11. 6Tass, 30 August 1974, 0520 GMT. 7The first representatives of Western business circles who were permitted to visit the cosmodrome were from Inmarsat and British Aerospace during October 1987: Novosti Press Agency, London, USSR Space Bulletin SB21, 21 October 1987, p 10. However, Arthur Dula, President of the Space Commerce Corporation of Houston, TX, was later described as the first businessman to visit Baikonur: Tass, 26 November 1987, 1152 GMT. The Indian ambassador and a delegation of West German businessmen were present at the launch of the Indian IRS-1A satellite: Soviet television, 17 March 1988, 0630 GMT. Preparations for the launch of the Soviet-Bulgarian space crew and a Progress cargo craft at the Baikonur cosmodrome were witnessed by 76 foreign journalists: Soviet television, 18 May 1988, 0230 GMT. The following day they witnessed the launch of a topographical satellite in the Cosmos series: News at Ten, fiN, 19 May 1988. Defence Minister Dzhurov of Bulgaria was present at the launch of Soyuz-TM 5 carrying a Bulgarian cosmonaut: Soviet television, 7 June 1988, 1255 GMT. Representatives of American, FR German, Italian and British companies engaged in space launch risk insurance witnessed the launch of Phobos 2: Tass, 13 July 1988, 1241 GMT. President Mitterrand of France was present at the launch of Soyuz-TM 7 carrying a French cosmonaut: Soviet television, 26 November 1988, 1515 GMT. 8V. Gubarev, Pravda, 6 June 1983, p 3. 9G.E. Perry, Flight International, 21 April 1966, p 670. I°G.E. Perry, Flight International, 10 November 1966, p 817.
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On the following day at (1415 BST 1 switched on my bedside receiver again, expecting to find that Soyuz 15 had docked with Salyut 3. However, the telemetry from the space station suggested that the docking had not taken place and there were no signals from the Soyuz. On looking out of the bedroom window I saw the Soyuz in the constellation of Cetus, followed by Salyut 3. Obviously something was wrong, but who wants to know at 4.30 am? At 0800 BST the Moscow home service reported that, during manoeuvring, Soyuz 15 approached the Salyut 3 space station many times but the cosmonauts were concluding the flight and preparing for the return to Earth. 4 Writing in a national newspaper, 1 showed that the launch time had suggested a flight duration of between three and four weeks and that the curtailment, due to the inability of a standard Soyuz to sustain a manned flight for more than 48 hours plus a comfortable safety margin, had necessitated the first ever night-time landing of a Soviet manned spacecraft. ~ The post-flight press conference at Zvezdniy G o r o d o k made no reference to an intention to dock with Salyut 3 and the night-time landing was explained as a development to accommodate the requirement for the ability to fly at any time of the year, in any weather, and at any time of day or nightJ'
Launch sites Military use of the launch sites dictated the secrecy surrounding their locations. The first outsider to visit the Baikonur cosmodrome was President De Oaulle, accompanied only by his personal physician, to view the launch of Cosmos 122 in June 1966. Four years later President Pompidou was present at the launch of Cosmos 368. The joint ApolloSoyuz Test Project (ASTP) in 1975 opened up the launch site to three parties of American astronauts and technicians but these were flown in and out during the hours of darkness. In recent years the cosmodrom¢ has been opened to businessmen regarded as potential customers for launch vehicles and launch services, heads of state at times of launch of foreign cosmonauts on international missions to the Salyut 7 and Mir space stations, and the Western media for the launches of Cosmos 1944 and the Phobos probes to Mars and its natural satellite] The Volgograd Station, or Kapustin Yar as it is known in the West, was visited by scientists from Eastern bloc countries working with the Soviets under the Intercosmos programme for scientific payloads which began in 1969. Engineers from Sweden, India and France have also visited Kapustin Yar in connection with the launches of their own payloads and experiments. An article entitled 'Kapustin Yar: a look through the years' appeared in Pravda in 1983. 8 I have always felt a personal involvement with the third Soviet launch site in the north of the USSR close to the Arctic Circle. When Cosmos 112 was launched on 17 March 1966 it flew at a new inclination to the Equator and the signal quality and transmission characteristics were significantly different from anything that we had encountered before. 1 quickly realized from a consideration of its ground tracks that it could not have been launched from either of the two known sites and wrote a letter to the editor of Flight International asserting that a new launch site had been brought into use. 9 The launch of Cosmos 129 at a different inclination enabled me to deduce its approximate location, lO Over the
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years Plesetsk became the most used launch site in the world and, although certain launches from there were visible from Sweden and Finland and the launch pads showed up clearly in Landsat imagery, 11 its existence was not officially acknowledged until 1983.12 Intercosmos 8 was launched from Plesetsk in 1972 and experts of countries taking part in the Intercosmos programme have participated in the preparations for subsequent launches. The delegation at the launch of the IntercosmosBulgaria 1300 satellite included Georgiy Ivanov, the Bulgarian cosmonaut. 13 With the changes in attitude there is now even talk of arranging tourist visits to the Baikonur cosmodrome. According to Anatoliy Yakolev of the Soviet Committee on Foreign Tourism, 'space tours' will include visits to the cosmodrome on a regular basis from next year, two or three times a month and timed to coincide with satellite launches. Seven-day 'space tours' currently feature trips to Moscow, Kaluga and Leningrad with visits to the cosmonauts' training centre at Zvezdniy Gorodok, the mission control centre at Kaliningrad, and museums, and more than 1000 visitors from the West went on these tours during the first few months they were organized. 14
Launch vehicles As with the launch sites, military associations dictated secrecy over the launch vehicles used in the space programme. Nearly ten years elapsed between the launch of Sputnik 1 and the unveiling of the standard launch vehicle at the 1967 Paris Air Show. Later that year the small rocket which inaugurated the Cosmos programme from Kapustin Yar was put on display in the Space Exhibition at the Museum of Economic Achievement in Moscow. Whereas these launch vehicles were developments of ballistic missiles, the Proton rocket, which made its debut in 1965, was the product of a civilian design bureau. However, the first clear views of the Proton to be seen in the West were to be found in the television coverage of the launches of the two Vega spacecraft to Venus and Comet Halley at the end of 1984. Subsequently, prompted by the desire to market the Proton as a commercial venture, considerable detail has been made available in books and brochures. 15 The commercial thrust also led to the revelation of the name 'Tsyklon' for the booster known in the West as the F-2 or SL-14 in a Glavkosmos briefing. 16 11Aviation Week & Space Technology, 8 The introduction of the largest booster, Energiya, was conducted with April 1974, pp 18-20. 12V. Gubarev, Pravda, 20 June 1983, p 3. full media treatment. When General Secretary Gorbachev visited the 13Moscow home service, 7 August 1981, Baikonur cosmodrome on 11-13 May 1987, the report of his visit stated 1700 GMT. that preparations were under way for the launch of a new all-purpose ~4Tass, 30 June 1989. ~SKosmonavtika Entsiklopediya, Moscow, carrier rocket capable of delivering to LEO both reusable ships and 1985, p 307; Kosmonavtika CCCP, Machi- large-scale research and commercial craft, including modules for orbitnostroyeniye, Moscow, 1986, pp 112, 147, 148-149, 216, 415, 426, 433, 439 and ing space laboratories.17 News of the launch at 1730 GMT on 15 May 479; 'Soviet launch vehicle Proton for in- was delayed until the following day. 18 In the event it was something less jecting satellite in geostationary orbit', than a complete success in that the payload did not achieve orbit but it Vneshtoryizdat, Izd No 5644M, VTI zak was stressed that the Energiya had fulfilled all its aims and objectives. 7287 (nd). ISAviation Week & Space Technology, 1 Although television viewers in the UK were treated only to brief June 1987, p 13. glimpses of the stack on the pad in daylight and the night-time launch ~TMoscow home service, 13 May 1987, due to the abbreviated Saturday night news bulletins, Soviet television 1400 GMT. ~STass, 16 May 1987, 1555 GMT. showed a full-length feature, running for nearly ten minutes, which
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Perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet space programme revealed considerable detail including shots of tulips and horses on the steppes! 19 Even m o r e detail was shown on the occasion of the first launch of the air-space plane Buran 20 and Buran itself was displayed at the Paris Air Show last July. el The RD-17(I engines of the strap-ons for Energiya which form the first stage of the new Zenit launch vehicle were also displayed at the show along with scale models of all the launch vehicles G l a v k o s m o s are offering for sale.
RORSATS
19Soviet television, 16 May 1987, 1700 GMT. 2°Soviet television, 23 October 1988, 1530 GMT; 25 October 1988, 1530 GMT; 26 October 1988, 1414 GMT; 29 October 1988, 1800 GMT; 15 November 1988, 0651 GMT. mAviation Week & Space Technology, 12 June 1989, cover and pp 61, 65; 19 June 1989, pp 46-47, 50-51, 53.
22Operation Morning Light, Canadian North West Territories, US Department of Energy, Washington, DC, 1978.
23Daily Telegraph, 7 January 1983. 24pravda, 8 January 1983, 2nd ed, p 2. 25Soviettelevision, 15 January 1983, 1400 GMT.
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The U S S R began operating satellites equipped with radar for probing the ocean surface to determine ship locations in 1967. The satellites, flying in near-circular orbits at a height of 260 km and 65 ° inclination, are known in the West as R O R S A T S . At the end of the active phase of their missions the payload is separated from the final stage of the carrier rocket and the orbit is raised to 1000 km so that their radioactive power source may be ' p a r k e d ' out of h a r m ' s way. In-orbit failures of this mechanism have caused international concern on three occasions. On 8 O c t o b e r 1977 Cosmos 952, which had been operating in conjunction with Cosmos 954, was transferred to the 'safe' orbit. A n d r e w Driver, a junior pupil at Kettering G r a m m a r School, was detailed to follow the progress of Cosmos 954. At the beginning of N o v e m b e r he told me that it had stopped making the m i c r o m a n o e u v r e s which were characteristic of the operational phase and had entered a regime of natural decay. On 6 January 1978 the rate of decay increased dramatically and it decayed in the a t m o s p h e r e on 24 January, spreading its radioactive debris over a wide area of northern Canada. 22 The p r o g r a m m e was resumed following a system redesign in 198(i. The next mishap occurred on 28 D e c e m b e r 1982 when, at the end of the active phase of its mission, Cosmos 1402 split into three components, all of which remained in the 260 km orbit. The world's media became aware of the situation on 5 January 1983 and, mindful of the Cosmos 954 incident, gave it m a x i m u m attention. This produced one instance of an untruth in an official Soviet statement although this was probably due to ignorance rather than to a deliberate desire to mislead. The next day, in response to questions from Western journalists at the Moscow press conference held in honour of the record-breaking Salyut 7 cosmonauts, Academician Kotelnikov denied that there was any problem with Cosmos 1402. That night, after a day of m a n y telephone queries, a newspaper reporter asked me to c o m m e n t on Kotelnikov's r e m a r k and, without thinking, I replied that it was 'a pack of lies'. To my horror I was reported accurately in the following day's edition with 'Pack of Lies' as a subtitle .23 I was greatly relieved when it was admitted that the satellite was out of control. This report emphasized that all precautions had been taken to ensure that no parts reached the E a r t h ' s surface. 24 One piece, catalogued by N O R A D as 'B', decayed rapidly. We soon realized that piece ' C ' was decaying at a slower rate than piece ' A ' and the reason for this became clear when the Director of the Moscow Physico-Technical Institute, Oleg Belotserkovskiy, disclosed on Soviet television that the two remaining pieces were the main section of the satellite and the fuel core of its nuclear reactor. 25 Piece ' C ' with its greater density was obviously the separated fuel core. Both pieces decayed in the atmosphere over the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans. In fairness, one must
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admit that the USSR had lodged a document with the United Nations describing steps taken to prevent another contamination incident such as had occurred with Cosmos 954 in which separation of the fuel core to ensure total ablation by aerodynamic processes during re-entry had been given as one possibility, but no definite solution had been identified26 and the document was not widely known. The most recent occasion was concerned with Cosmos 1900 last year. Launched at the end of 1987, it made the characteristic micromanoeuvres maintaining its orbital period at a slightly greater value than the standard 89.65 min, until 10 April 1988, thereafter entering a regime of natural decay. Although I expressed my concern to various bodies, I waited until the period had decreased to below 89.65 min before openly speculating that it was out of control. 27 Following this, the Soviets admitted that Cosmos 1900 had a nuclear power plant on board and that contact with the satellite had been lost in April. It would remain in orbit until August-September, after which it would cease to exist. It was equipped with systems ensuring radiation safety on completion of the flight. 28 A later report stated that the nuclear power plant would be automatically withdrawn from the satellite when its systems reached 'pre-set levels of operation'. It continued by saying that if the automatic system failed a system for the separation of the nuclear reactor into parts would be activated on the entry of the satellite into the atmosphere. 29 In the event, this was what happened. The orbit decayed naturally until late on 30 September when its orbital period had decreased to 87 min. At that point the forces of atmospheric drag triggered the mechanism that caused the satellite to split and lift the radioactive part to a higher orbit, somewhat short of the standard 'safe' orbit but high enough to prolong its life for the order of 100 years. At the time of writing (July 1989) the programme has not been resumed. Although the Soviets were much more open in the matter of Cosmos 1900 they failed to announce it in the month which elapsed between its malfunction and the breaking of the story on ITN.
Admissions of failure
AC.105/C.1/WG.V/L. 10, 25 January 1980. 27Newsat Ten, ITN, London, 10 May 1988, 2100 GMT. 2e'rass, 13 May 1988, 1100 GMT. 2e'rass, 8 June 1988, 0746 GMT.
Strict control of the media during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras ensured that no hint of failure ever reached the world from Soviet sources and the Soviet people were kept in ignorance through suppression of Western analyses which revealed failures when they did occur. The Cosmos label was used to disguise interplanetary and lunar missions which failed to leave Earth orbit, and Molniya communication satellites and Meteor meteorological satellites which experienced electronic failure before becoming operational. The reluctance to admit a docking failure with Soyuz 15 has already been noted. This policy had the desired effect of producing an impression in the minds of the general public that the Soviet space programme was totally successful whereas the frequent US failures of the early years, carried out in the glare of publicity, were patently not so. Few people today are aware that between the successful launches of the first two Sputniks in October and November 1957 and the launch of Luna 1, which failed to achieve its mission of impacting the Moon in January 1959, there were three failed lunar attempts and a Sputnik failure during 1958 to set against the solitary successful launch of Sputnik 3. Yet, no doubt, they were aware of some at least of the nine US Vanguard, Explorer and Beacon failures within the same period.
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2S'Questions relating to the use of nuclear power sources in outer space', USSR working paper, UN General Assembly N
Perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet space programme
Of course, it was impossible to hush up major disasters such as the deaths of Vladimir Komarov and of Georgiy Dobrovolskiy, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev during the return from orbit of Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11, but doubts still persist as to the cause of the Soyuz l accident and only US insistence during the preparations for the ASTP produced the complete explanation for the depressurization of Soyuz 11. Nowadays, with international involvement in major programmes, an element of failure is more readily admitted. This was particularly evident in the attempts to dock Kvant with Mir 3~ and the EVA to repair the Anglo-Dutch X-ray telescope on Kvant. 3~ Consequently, justifiable pride was shown in each case when the tasks were successfully completed. 32 The failures of the two Phobos probes were reported without undue delay33 and subsequent analyses were not without self-criticism. ~4
Self-criticism
a°Tass, 5 April 1987, 0651 GMT; 9 April 1987, 0846 GMT. 31Tass, 30 June 1988, 1407 GMT. 32mass,12 April 1987,0215 GMT; Moscow home service, 20 October 1988, 1100 GMT. 33mass,9 September 1988, 0925 GMT; 29 March 1989, 1546 GMT. 34Radio Moscow in English for Great Britain and Ireland, 12 October 1988, 2000 GMT; Tass, 15 April 1989, 1425 GMT; Moscow world service in English, 17 April 1989, 1100 GMT. 35The writer complained that the system fell far short of being adapted to the needs of the USSR in that equipment installed in stations for receiving signals from space had not been perfected and did not permit the coordinates of the disaster victims to be computed quickly and precisely. It was claimed that rescue teams usually obtained their information from tracking stations of other countries and that malfunctions occurred regularly in Soviet stations' apparatus. He had formed the impression that 'the people responsible for operating the Soviet part of the system were in too much of a hurry to report its commissioning'. Sovetskaya Rossiya, 20 August 1987, p 4. aePravda, 5 October 1988, p 3. aTPravda, 25 March 1989, p 3. 381zvestiya, 28 April 1988, p 3. Sagdeev was replaced as head of IKI during 1988. At a press conference in Moscow on 18 January 1989, Dunayev, head of Glavkosmos, claimed that he had asked to be released from the post and that, following elections, he was succeeded by Corresponding Member Galleyev. Sagdeev was said to be still working in IKI, leading a large group of scientists working on systems analysis of space research.
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Glasnost has allowed Soviet individuals to criticize aspects of their space programme. One of the first examples of this which came to my notice was in connection with the international Cospas-Sarsat search and rescue system. 35 Even more startling was a statement in an account of the radar remote sensing mission of Cosmos 1870, launched in 1987, which said, 'Soviet cosmonautics, like other fields of our work in the 1970s and early 1980s, was affected by forces of stagnation and retardation. The s a t e l l i t e . . , was ready for launching about seven years ago, but the launch was cancelled because of intrigues against the director of the satellite's development. Personnel of industry and the eosmodrome who preserved the satellite and its equipment intact, contrary to "instructions", should receive due credit for their courage. ,36 In a newspaper interview, Lt-Gen Vladimir Shatalov, chief of the cosmonaut training centre, called for better organization of Soviet space efforts. Pointing out that, although certain elements were present, they did not have an overall, well-organized and permanently operating body equivalent to NASA, he remarked that this was not beneficial for cosmonautics. The head scientific associate of the Institute of Space Research (IKI) blamed the lack of communication between the Academy of Sciences and the Soviet aerospace industry for the design of the two Phobos spacecraft, leading to limited payload and data transmission capabilities. He said that plans for the proposed mission to Mars in 1994 were proceeding with 'striking laxity'. 37 In a lengthy newspaper article, Academician Sagdeev, who was at the time the director of IKI, criticized the organization of Soviet science and the emphasis on manned space programmes. In particular he directed his criticism at research planning practices, rules governing the tenure of science officials, and the oversized and unwieldy staffs of many research institutes. He derided the quality and quantity of computer technology at the disposal of academy research personnel and engineers. He claimed that had IKI not promptly begun developing special homemade computers to process the results of the encounters of the Vega probes with Comet Halley, they could not have kept up with computer instruction of the ESA's Giotto which flew by the comet only a few days later. 3~
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Commercialization
39"l'he fees for placing a spacecraft into geosynchronous transfer orbit or directly into geosynchronous orbit are $28 million and $35 million respectively - less than half those charged by Arianespace and the US commercial launch industry and only slightly dearer than those demanded by China's Great Wall Industry Corporation. Launches into low Earth orbit cost $10 million for Tsyklon, $14 million for Vostok or $15 million for Soyuz boosters.
4°Soviet Communication Satellite Gorizont, V/O Licensintorg, Minskaya str 11, 121108, Moscow. 41An Austrian cosmonaut will take part in a flight to the Mir space station in 1992 at a cost to Austria of the order of 150 million Schillings: Tass, 5 April 1988, 1527 GMT. On the day prior to the launch of Soyuz-TM 7, carrying the French cosmonaut to Mir, a protocol was signed on a scientific programme to place French instruments on Soviet orbital stations. It envisaged a series of missions by French cosmonauts lasting one month, at perhaps two-year intervals: Radio Moscow International in French, 26 November 1988, 1500 GMT. Alexander Dunayev, Chairman of Glavkosmos, and Valeriy Ignatov, Chairman of Licensintorg, signed an agreement with Kiichi Nakamura, President of the Japanese TBS television network, and Hiroshi Ota, President of TBS News, to send a Japanese pressman into outer space as a member of a Soviet crew on board Mir: Tass, 27 March 1989. This provoked a storm of protest from interested Soviet pressmen: Tass, 31 March 1989. Advertisements using the headline, 'Astronaut wanted. No experience necessary', calling for applicants to be a British astronaut on a flight to Mir in 1991 were placed in newspapers and magazines following simultaneous press conferences in Moscow and London. The £16 million cost was to be recouped by the sale of sponsorship and merchandising packages, the sale of payload space for scientific experiments, and broadcasting rights: 'Project Juno' media information kit, Granard Rowland Communications, London, 29 June 1989. The organizers received more than 12 000 inquiries before the closing date: Daily Telegraph, London, 15 July 1989. 42B. Kovonvalov, 'Space and money', Izvestiya, 7 June 1988. 43yu. Vykhodtsev, Tass, Berne, 29 March 1989. 44S. Leskov, 'Space and the kopeck', Izvestiya, 22 March 1989, p 2. ~Moscow home service, 12 April 1989, 1700 GMT; Pravda, 13 April 1989.
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A major initiative of the Gorbachev administration was the creation of the 'civil' space agency, Glavkosmos, in October 1985. Glavkosmos is responsible for overseeing space science, the space station programme and commercial activities - the non-military aspects of the space programme. Glavkosmos, through the Soviet foreign trade agency, Licensintorg, offers launch services on all of their launch vehicles, including Zenit and Energiya, 39 an annual lease of transponders or a complete Gorizont communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit, 4° flight opportunities for materials processing on recoverable Foton spacecraft and the Mir space station, and, most recently, flight opportunities for foreign cosmonauts on short visits to Mir. 41 One of the first overt indications that commercialization was playing a part in the Soviet manned spaceflight programme was the appearance of advertising panels for Bulgarian and Soviet organizations during tests for the launch of Soyuz-TM 5, carrying the second Bulgarian cosmonaut, in June 1988. 42 The Swiss advertising agency, Punto, signed an agreement with Glavkosmos and Licensintorg for two panels, 2 m x 3 m, to be painted on the hull of Mir. Advertising patches and signs would be placed on spacesuits worn by cosmonauts and hoardings would be mounted at launch pads. The cost of an advertising package would be of the order of $620 000 (1 million Swiss Francs). 43 Advertising was to be one of the sources of finance for Project Juno. Closely linked with the move towards commercialization has been the call for value for money. This was particularly true at the time of the elections to the new Congress. 44 To one who has for many years been quoting figures from official Soviet sources for costs and benefits of various of the Soviet space programmes, the Cosmonautics Day observation, by Academician Mikhail Reshetnev, that Soviet citizens' unfamiliarity with their national space programme was hampering their appreciation of its potential came as something of a surprise. Presumably, statements issued for the benefit of foreign listeners to Radio Moscow's world service and readers of Soviet material produced for publication in foreign countries have not been made available to the Soviet public. This surely demonstrates a breakdown in public relations. In acknowledging the Soviet public's recent doubts about 'the expediency of expenditure on space research' and questions about 'the wisdom of developing many space projects at the current stage of restructuring when the country is dealing with great problems, for instance ecological, food, housing and other problems, which require huge material expenses', he speculated that they were caused by insufficient information being available to the Soviet public about the ways cosmonautics had been developing, its priorities and the potential of its achievements for the national economy. He said that it could be explained, to a considerable degree, by the fact that space science and technology had been created on the basis of advances in defence industries and rocket technology, which naturally were classified - explained but not justified. Saying that people wanted to know how and for what national funds were being spent and what results they yielded, he continued, 'I am sure that if they had been told that in 1988 the economic effect of applied branches of cosmonautics had exceeded the total annual spending on cosmonautics by approximately one-third, there would have been considerably fewer pronouncements of that kind. Cosmonautics is now on the verge of being self-financing.'45 285
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In an interview with S. Polovnikov, director general of the Komposite scientific production association, shown in the Vremya newscast, P. Orlov suggested that the technology shown had previously been concealed from their own people rather than from foreign competitors who either already possessed the technology themselves or were ready to purchase it from the USSR. He concluded by saying that, if it were up to him, he would invite those people's deputies who were proposing to cut back the appropriations for space programmes there to see for themselves. 4('
Secrecy Not only have we seen questioning and criticism of the Soviet space programme in recent years but one Soviet journalist has actually poked fun at the regime of secrecy which prevailed before glasnost. In describing the press conference following Yuriy Gagarin's historic flight in 1961 and Gagarin's answers to questions, sometimes after prolonged discussions with an accompanying academician, he points out that honest answers to those questions would hardly have weakened the USSR's defence capability. 47 He went on to criticize the accounts given at the time of the unforeseen landing of Voskhod 2 in the taiga, many miles from the intended recovery zone, and the 'salvage' of the Salyut 7 orbital station, which omitted much information. In noting that past errors in industry and agriculture are now openly admitted, he pondered the cost of failure to admit propaganda and ideological errors. He gave two examples of the folly of trying to impose secrecy on the timing of events relating to manned spaceflight: the wife of a colleague knew that a launch was imminent because she packed the special food which was always shipped to the cosmodrome a given number of days beforehand; and journalists in the Karaganda region knew when a landing was expected because electrical power would be cut off from overhead high-tension cables and the local communities and enterprises were informed in advance. 4s The change in attitude was referred to in an introduction to a recent interview with Yuriy Semenov, chief designer of spacecraft and space stations, which appeared under the title 'Where is Buran flying? '49 One aspect in which there has been some relaxation of secrecy of late can be seen in the giving of names to satellites in programmes which have hitherto been conducted under the cloak of the Cosmos label. In the field of remote sensing there was the name Okean for an oceanographic satellite in the series which, commencing with Cosmos 1500, use 46Soviet television, 21 May 1989, 1700 side-looking radar, and Resurs-F for satellites in the film-return series. GMT. 4~y.K. Golovanov, 'Cosmonautics in the whose products are offered for sale through Soyuzkarta. 5° Most recently mirror of glasnost', Kommunist, October there has been the use of the name Nadezhda (Hope) for a civil 1988, pp 23-31. navigation satellite of the Tsikada system, carrying Cospas-Sarsat 481bid. 49'Just a few years ago, perhaps even last transponders. year, such a conversation would have been unthinkable. Newspapers described original technological solutions and unique experiments in orbit. It was not acceptable to discuss the economic aspects of space science, even less so to compare efficacy with expenditures. The mist of departmental secrecy is dissipating and space science has learned to count its pennies.' G. Lomanov, Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya, 30 May 1989. S°Tass, 15 February 1989, 1535 GMT.
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Conclusion The increased openness about non-sensitive issues is to be welcomed. Advance announcements of the proposed timing of events related to the manned spaceflight programmes and speedy explanations of delays and complications have removed some of the challenge and excitement which has fuelled the Kettering Group and maintained their interest for more than 30 years. SPACE POLICY November 1989
Perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet space programme
January 1989 supplement to The RAE Table of Earth Satellites, p 967.
Of course, the military programmes are still unidentified and one cannot help noting that the new trend has come at a time when the USA is classifying not only the names of certain programmes but also the orbital elements for some military spacecraft. Moreover, there is now a delay of a year or more before the basic data relating to such flights is lodged with the United Nations as required by international agreement. The value of such a policy is debatable because amateur observers are capable of determining the orbits from their visual observations and these are openly published. 51 The Kettering Group will continue to pursue their hobby of keeping watch on the Soviet space programme (and the closed programmes of other nations). Six years ago, in an interview for Readers Digest, I said, 'The only way to close us down at Kettering would be for them to adopt a policy of complete openness on all matters appertaining to outer space - and we think that most unlikely!'
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SlThe orbit for the secret payload deployed from the US Space Shuttle Atlantis on 2
December 1988 was published in the